In The Morning Light
by The Mad Habberdasher
Summary: Bo leaves her baggage behind, and a certain thief can't help but do a little poking around. Kenzi/Dyson
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Lost Girl. This work is not for profit, just for fun.

In the Morning Light

_The Mad Habberdasher_

Bo left.

It's six thirty, the sun's just starting to peak over the eastern horizon. And, Bo left. This isn't unusual. Completely freaking normal in fact. What isn't normal is what she left behind.

I stare at my Rice Krispies, watching them float, and thinking about George Carlin. A strange subject, but it's better than the other place my brain wants to take me. I spoon some of the little air flakes up, and send them down the hatch. The sugar makes the milk sweet, but it leaves the cereal flavorless.

And, while I like Rice Krispies, today, this morning, I don't.

Today I want…

I stop myself before I get too far with that thought. I'm not allowed. Girl's code of honor or something like that. I'm not supposed to touch Bo's baggage. But, it's all I can think about.

The milk goes down the drain, leaving some of the cereal in the sink. A quick flip of the wrist, and a steady stream of water washes those down. I give a soft sigh, and throw a quick glance at the bedroom door.

I want to cast away the façade, the hyper happy puppy that every one expects of me. I want to be serious for one day. I want to be the important one for one day.

The assistant.

The side kick.

Bo's little human pet.

That's how they all look at me. Even Bo's baggage. I can't help it anymore.

My footsteps are soft as I creep across the hard wood floor. I don't want to make a sound, not a creak or a groan. That would alert my prey. Wake Bo's baggage, and I don't want it awake.

I reach the door, and I pause. My heart is pounding, somewhere in my throat. The anticipation, the pressure on my brain, and the overwhelming desire. That last one warms me from the core. Insatiable. I want to open the door. I need to open the door. My hand finds the knob without me telling it too.

The knob seems to pulse in my hand, thrumming with power, and I can't tell if it's Bo's baggage or if I'm feeling my heartbeat through the metal.

I want to turn it.

I don't want to turn it.

I want to turn it.

I don't want to turn it.

My hand moves again, all by itself. It turns the knob, opening the door with a little push. The hinges squeak. My hair stands on end. I'm caught!

I stand there, frozen, staring into the bedroom, staring right at Bo's baggage. It doesn't move. Well, it moves, but it's just the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.

Yes, Dyson is Bo's baggage. I had to convince myself early on to look at him that way. If I hadn't I'd be standing right here doing this, watching him sleep, watching the rise and fall of his all too well muscled chest. Watching the way his tattoo changes with every breath; first reflecting the language of the fey, then reflecting the language of the shifters.

God's above, he's hot.

But, watching isn't enough. I knew it wouldn't be.

My mind resists my primal desire for only a minute longer. Then I take two steps. Three steps. Four. Before I know it, I'm across the room, staring down at the man, the fey, that captured my heart and soul, but wouldn't give me the time of day, even if I asked for it.

Dyson shifts position, rolling onto his back and stretching. I freeze, every muscle locking up. I'm caught. Again.

But, I'm not.

Dyson doesn't open his eyes. He yawns in his sleep, and his chest returns to those simple rhythmic breaths. I can see the curl of his auburn chest hair and the smooth sheen of sweat across his skin. I want to touch him, tickle him really. Just run the tips of my fingers over him. I want to watch the goose bumps it creates. But I can't.

I start to turn and leave, but I catch sight of his lips. They're kind of thin, almost not there beneath his beard. But, I see them none the less. I see them, and I know instantly what I want to do.

I can't.

I must.

I can't.

I must.

Damn these impulse control problems.

Before I know it, I'm leaning down, wetting my lips with my tongue, and pressing them against Dyson's. I didn't expect a reaction. I didn't expect him to match my pressure, to feel the firm line of his teeth press into my mouth. Nor the insistence of his tongue as it moved from his mouth to mine.

The fire in my belly raged. I had to pull away. Had to get away before he knew.

Finally sense returned, and I jerked away, leaving his tongue hanging in midair. Now, I didn't care if I woke him up. I ran, out the door, slamming it shut behind me, up the stairs and into the bathroom where I slammed and locked the door. (This was probably a futile effort, considering the person shaped hole in the wall.) I let myself collapse, let the tears come.

"Bo?" I heard Dyson say from down below. His voice was still thick with sleep. _Let him think it was Bo,_ I thought choking down a sob. _Just let him think it was Bo. He never has to know._

I look out the small circular window at the morning light coming in, and I wished the day was over.


	2. In the Morning Light

Disclaimer: I do not own Lost Girl. This work is not for profit, just for fun.

Author's Note:

Hello Kids and Kiddets, The Mad Haberdasher is here, and he has a little something to say.

First off, thank you so much, I got a much better response on this story then I thought I was going to. And, due to those thoughts, I had intended for _In the Morning Light_ to be a one-shot story. As such, I went about it entirely willy-nilly writing it in a tense and perspective I'm not used too. It was very much a stream of consciousness piece. So, yeah.

When I got over the shock of people liking it, reviewing it, and adding it to their watch lists/blog roll/alerts/or whatever it's called, I decided to continue it. I sat down to write the second chapter, and tried to do it the same way I did the first. And, as it turns out, I'm unable to do stream of consciousness intentionally. (In other words the second chapter sucked.) So, to make it work better for me I decided to go at it the way I normally go about my stories.

That simply means a piece meal outline and a lot of prewriting. So, what follows is a rewrite of the first chapter to make it fit with the rest of the story. (And, don't worry, I'm not taking the first chapter down. I like it too much to take it down.)

Anywho, enjoy, and I hope you like it as much as the last.

Chapter 1: In the Morning Light

_Bo left._

Kenzi sat on the small couch, just a love seat really, staring at the TV without seeing what was on. There was a bowl of cereal in her hands, Rice Crispies, her favorite, but she hadn't had more than two or three bites.

_6am and Bo left._ Kenzi thought. _Well, that's completely freaking normal._

_What isn't normal…_

Kenzi's eyes drifted to the closed bedroom door. Bo's bedroom. The one place where she kept all her important stuff, all her baggage, and, naturally, Kenzi wasn't supposed to touch her baggage. One of those rules Bo set up when Kenzi moved in.

"The little theif is not allowed in my room," Kenzi said very quietly, mocking Bo's husky voice. Bo had meant it as a joke, but how often did little jokes hurt.

She took another spoonful of cereal. The milk was sweet, it had maybe a little too much sugar, but the cereal, the floating air flakes, were flavorless. It make her think of George Carlin and Dane Cook who stole the routine from George Carlin. And, all of that might have been a weird train of thought, but it kept her from thinking about …

Kenzi stood up from the couch and walked around to the kitchen sink. There would have been a bounce to her step on any other day, a bounce that seemed to be a natural part of her personality, but today it was gone. Today, Kenzi cast aside the hyper happy puppy routine, after all, everybody needed a serious day once in a while.

Today was hers.

And, it was all because of Bo's baggage.

She poured the Rice Crispies down the drain, found a few left in the sink, and flipped her wrist to send a steady stream of water to do the job. Kenzi turned, and found herself staring at the bedroom door again, at the baggage left behind, and she wanted…

_I will not walk that path!_ Kenzi thought. She turned to the TV, grabbed the remote and pumped up the volume.

"The city is still reeling today from what's being considered a double homicide," the news anchor said. A slow chill crept up Kenzi's back. "Jane Stacey, 26 of West king St., and another young woman whose name has not been released yet. The information we have tells us it looks like both women were mauled by some wild animal, and while anything is possible, the police find it highly unlikely that a bear is loose in the city. Animal control specialists have been called in to help deal with the situation."

_Fey_, was Kenzi's only thought. A shifter, somebody like Dyson, who could into said wild animal and maul those victims. But, most Fey were good at cleaning up their messes…weren't they?

A commercial came on, and Kenzi stopped paying attention to the TV. Her mind and eyes had fluttered back to the door, back to Bo's baggage.

"Are you lonely?"

"Yes," Kenzi answered.

"Do you feel like you're the sidekick?"

"The Robin to Bo's batman," Kenzi said without thinking about it. "The assistant! The sidekick! Bo's little human pet! Yes!"

"Are you always in the friend zone?"

"Yes," Kenzi answered again, and she thought of Bo's baggage. She thought of how she was always in the friend zone, always the third wheel. Anger welled in her, rising up her spine right along with the creeping chill. She felt her cheeks flush with that anger.

The commercial started to say something else, but Kenzi cut the commercial short with the power button. She didn't need whatever it was selling to get what she wanted. What she wanted was less than a hundred feet away. Just a few steps and she would be there. She would be standing right overtop of Bo's baggage.

Kenzi felt herself move, though she hadn't given her body any commands. She stood up and started across the room, her bare feet making little sound as she went. Whether she knew it or not, she didn't want to alert her prey. So she crept, skipping over the board that always creaked loud enough to wake the dead, depending on the Fey status of the dead, and she continued. Before she could process she was at the door.

Her breath was coming in sharp ragged gasps, she closed her eyes to try and control it, but that was like denying the new heat rising within her. The one spreading from her core, and, again, Kenzi's body moved of its own accord. Her hand reached out and wrapped around the knob. The brass was warm, and seemed to thrum with a power all its own. It was a steady sensation. Up. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. Like a heartbeat. She wondered for a moment if it was hers, but hers was much faster, more erratic, and pounding against her chest like it wanted to escape.

Her hand tightened on the knob.

_I can't._ her mind sent flashing red warning lights throughout her body. This was crossing the line! This was messing with Bo's baggage.

_I will!_ Her hand tightened again, her body, her need for what lay beyond absolutely tormented her. The warmth in her core rose and rose, till it was a maddening blaze.

_I can't!_

_I won't!_

Kenzi's hand took complete control and twisted the knob. There was a soft click as the catch cleared the doorframe and a groan as she pushed it open. The groan was like thunder in Kenzi's ears, and she froze. She'd been caught. She'd swear to it in a court of law. But, there was no commotion from inside the room, no indication that she'd been caught.

Kenzi let out the breath she didn't realize she was holding, and pushed the door open.

Dyson as laying on the big four poster bed with his back turned to the door. Dyson, Bo's baggage, he'd become that in Kenzi's mind as soon as Bo laid claim to him. If she hadn't…

Well, if she hadn't she'd be doing exactly what she was doing now, standing in the doorway, watching the smooth even rise and fall of his chest. (The ribs on his side actually.) And, she could feel his warmth, his power, envelope her like a blanket and throb in such a way that it eased the beat of her heart. The beat of her heart and the pulse of his power evened out and became as one. Kenzi held her breath again, trying not to savor his scent.

Her body, twisting with need, started to move again. She took one step. Two steps. Three. Four. Before she was aware she moved she was standing right overtop of the bed looking down at Dyson. She could see the ripples of muscle in his back as he slightly shifted position. She could see the tattoo on his back, first reflecting the language of the Fey, then reflecting the language of the shifters. Kenzi could see the then sheen of sweat covering him, and, though wishes aren't horses, she wished she had been the cause of that sweat.

Her hand wanted to move, it wanted to touch and tickle his back, and she wanted to watch the goose bumps prickle along his flesh. She had to stop herself, and she did so just in time.

Dyson rolled, stretching himself out, yawning, and looking like he was waking up in general. Kenzi's heart was thundering in her chest again. 'I'm caught,' repeating over and over again in her brain, but Dyson settled on his back, clicked his teeth and wet his lips. His eyes stayed closed, the rhythm of his chest settled, and, after a few seconds, Kenzi's heart did too.

_I've got to go now,_ she thought, but her body didn't comply, and her eyes didn't either. They poured over Dyson's chest, reading him like a book. The auburn colored chest hair just thick enough to be sexy. The well, very well, defined muscles at the abs and pectorals, and shoulders. But, she was a little disappointed, the sheet stopped right before his…

Um…

Yeah.

_Gods he's hot!_ Kenzi thought as she stood there, and still she was telling herself to leave. Dyson was Bo's baggage and that wouldn't change. But, his lips caught her eye.

They were pursed, thin, and hiding under his beard, but they were there, and she couldn't stop herself.

Kenzi bent, moving slowly, placing one hand on the pillow for support as she dipped her head down. She expected it to be brief, just a peck really, but then there's Murphy's Law. Dyson kissed back. He pressed his lips to hers and she felt the firm line of his teeth, the simple action of his jaw as she opened hers to the insistence of his tongue. She knew he was tasting her. The fire in her core raged.

_What am I doing?_ A single thought snapped her back to reality. She jerked away from him, leaving his tongue hanging in midair, and she ran. She slammed the bedroom door behind her, no longer caring about stealth. Her foot steps pounded hard against the floor and the stairs. She cut the corner, barking her shoulder on the wall, and spun into the bathroom.

Kenzi's hand found the door and closed it just as hard as the bedroom door (ignorant of the human shaped hole in the wall), and collapsed into a corner made by the bathtub and the wall. She could still taste Dyson on her lips.

"Bo?" she heard Dyson call from below, his voice thick with sleep.

_Let him think it was Bo,_ she thought. _Just let him think it was Bo. He never has to know._

Kenzi looked up at the small circular window, the one spilling the morning light into the room.

"I wish this day was over."


	3. On Scene

Disclaimer: I do not own Lost Girl. This work is not for profit, just for fun.

Chapter 2: On Scene

Sweet milk.

It was the taste on his lips and the smell that clogged his nostrils. His stomach twisted and turned in ways he couldn't imagine possible, but that's what happened to the lactose-intolerant. It was something that happened to all shifters, just another part of sharing an animals mind and body. It was also very effective at blocking the other stench hanging in the air.

Hale took one sniff beside him, made a gagging face, and turned to Dyson. Dyson shrugged and looked at the room around him.

"What's the cover story?" Dyson whispered.

"Bear attack," Hale said, and it looked like a damn bear attack.

The room was torn apart with the bed being the worst. Stuffing was torn out of it, and blood was soaked into it. The girl on top of it was also shredded. The torn in half kind of shredded. Her intestines, stomach, hell most of her internal organs were splattered all over the walls in thick strands of black and grey. Her eyes were open, glazed, and a lovely shad of blue. Her hair was blonde.

Dyson knew her.

"How is a bear attack covering this?" Dyson asked. He looked around the room again, shaking his head. He noticed a vase of blood splattered white roses and forgot them as soon as he looked away. "It's on the thirty-fourth floor?"

"I dunno," Hale said. He glanced at Dyson, then back to the corpse. "They're buying it though."

"I would too," Dyson said. He caught sight of the corpse's pink lips with just a thin sheen of liquid on them. She'd put lipstick on before…before all this happened. He licked his lips and tasted the sweet milk. His mind wanted to wander, wanted to try and figure out who it was that kissed him. It could have been Bo. Could have been, but Dyson didn't think it was. He'd never seen Bo drink milk before, let alone sweetened milk. But, then, just because he'd never seen it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

"Gods," Hale said, shaking his head. He'd walked around to the other side of the bed. "That stink will fill the city soon enough, if that beast hangs around long enough."

"Werewolves don't stick around long," Dyson said. He stepped to the other side of the bed and took a long look down at the corpse. He knew her, alright, but he couldn't place her. Where had he seen her? Met her?

Who kissed him?

"They know we'd hunt them down, and cut their heads off with silver axes."

"Too much risk of humans finding out," Hale said. He glanced over at the cops in the other room, standing around and chatting while the detectives did their thing. But, they're faces were too pale, their laughter to forced. Those men knew it wasn't a bear attack, they could smell the death hanging in the air as easily as Hale could. They knew the monster responsible for this was beyond their nature.

They knew terror.

"The Ash will never agree to a hunting party in the city," Hale said, finishing his thought. He started to poke around at the items laying on the nightstand while Dyson continued to stare at the corpse.

A werewolf was in town. A beast that sent shivers down the spine of the bravest Fey. Nothing on earth and heaven could hunt like a werewolf. Given enough time their scent would mask their location, and their senses, even in human form, were just as strong as they were in animal form. Hunting one was often tantamount to suicide, even in a hunting party, while sitting around and waiting for it to leave was like… Dyson couldn't come up with a simile for what the second option would be. He supposed murder or homicide would work. Murder and homicide cases just like this one.

Who is she?

Who kissed me?

"You know this girl?" Hale asked, looking across the bed. He had an unfolded piece of paper in his hand but Dyson couldn't read what was written. Dyson cocked an eyebrow, looking very much like an auburn haired version of a pointy-eared hobgoblin.

"She's familiar," Dyson said.

"I'd hope so," Hale said. "She's got your cell number."

Hale held the slip out to Dyson, and Dyson could see his cell number right across the bottom in his combination neat and messy script. He nodded.

"I met her at a bar," Dyson said. "One up town I think. Near the crossover, but not quite Dark Fey territory. She was hot. We had sex. And, I've ignored her phone calls since then. Her name's Jessica or Jennifer, something that starts with a J."

"That's going to look bad," Hale said. He looked down at the body, inspected the razor like claw marks all around the edge of the tears between the two pieces. The flesh of Jessica or Jennifer's stomach was entirely gone with the exception of two ribbons of flesh, one with her belly button intact.

"I didn't do this," Dyson's voice climbed a notch. One of the other police officers looked over at them, and Hale smiled.

"Nah," he said. "I meant Bo."

A smile twisted Dyson's lips, even with the tragedy before him, Hale's simple joke had a positive effect. Dyson couldn't help the smartass reply.

"Hell, the only reason Bo would be mad is because I didn't bring her along."

:***:

The station was overtly crowded. It wasn't the number of criminals, but the number of cops in the building. Each of them had their own unpleasant smell. Dyson wasn't bothered by it though. He still had the taste and smell of sweet milk on his lips. And, now that they were away from the stench of death and werewolf, he had time to figure out who the culprit was. The kissing culprit of course.

Dyson's thoughts on that were limited though, mainly by the number of people who had a key to Bo's house. There was no sign of forced entry, though as dilapidated as the building was, finding a way inside without breaking anything would be pretty easy. As for the people who had a key it was a short list.

Him.

Bo.

Kenzi.

Trick.

Lauren.

And, he could knock Lauren and Trick off the list. He and Lauren hadn't seen eye-to-eye since her fling with Bo, and why in the human's god's name would Trick kiss him? It was just…wrong on so many levels.

That would leave Bo and Kenzi on the list.

Dyson could understand Bo doing it. A little good morning kiss, or good-bye kiss, before she ran off to work on her latest case, whatever that might be. But, Kenzi had said Bo left right around six this morning, and Dyson had been woken up by a slamming door or two around seven.

That left Kenzi.

Dyson licked his lips. Sweet Milk.

Kenzi liked Rice Crispies, a cereal where one had to put sugar in the milk to give it a flavor. But, why would Kenzi…

"Look who's here," Hale said, nearly startling Dyson out of his skin.

"The hell," Dyson said, glancing at Hale first. His partner pointed over his shoulder, towards the fogged glass door. Dyson looked, and found Kenzi looking right at him. The expression on her face was sad and her skin tone paler than usual. She was holding something.

Kenzi liked Rice Crispies. Sweet milk.

She moved closer to the partners, and Dyson could see the inflamed skin around her eyes. And, the little box in her hand.

Kenzi had been in the bathroom when Dyson talked to her. She had the door shut and locked, even with the human shaped hole in the wall.

The box had a little pink ribbon wrapped around it, and a little bow on the top. His name was written on it in a smooth Palmer script.

Why would Kenzi kiss him?

"This came for you," she said and handed him the box. He glanced at it, but couldn't keep his eyes off her lips. There was a dry patch of milk on the corner of her mouth.

"What's in the box?" Dyson asked. He forced himself to look away, to look at the box.

Why would Kenzi kiss him?

"I dunno," Kenzi said, seeming to answer both questions at once. She handed the box to Dyson. He kept his eyes on the small thing, kept them from wondering back up to Kenzi's lips. He took the ribbon off with one smooth motion, and lifted the lid.

Inside…

Author's note: Sorry about the length of time it took to put this up. I'm trying to find a way to be able to get a chapter up at least once a week, preferably on Friday or Saturday. But, with my chaotic work schedule it's hard to find time to work on this and my original work. Hopefully we'll get something lined out.


	4. The First Present

Chapter 3: The First Present

Inside the box was a white rose, cut just below the bud to make it _boutonniere__ length, splattered with blood. Thoughts of Kenzi kissing him fled Dyson's mind, and memory took over._

_An eye for detail in a necessity in the crime business, both ends of it, and though it might not have seemed important at the time, the memory of the flower vase came right back to him. He knew if he could smell it, the blood would smell the same as the blood in the room did. The flower would have almost the same scent as the other's. _Hale's reaction to it confirmed that fact.

"Gods, that thing smells," Hale said, his face a grimace as he turned it away from the flower. He held a hand up to his mouth, gagged once, then settled and turned back.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who had that reaction," Kenzi said. She shook her head, closed her eyes, and Dyson could almost see it as she forced down a wave of nausea.

"Where did you get this?" Dyson asked.

"I told you," Kenzi said. "It came for you."

"In the mail?"

"No, it was left by the door.' Kenzi said. She shook her head again, and let a grim smile pass across her face. "It was such a cliché, like kids playing ding dong ditch. Somebody knocked, and by the time I got there they were gone. Just the box was left."

Dyson nodded. He stared down at the flower, wanted to pick it up by the stem and spin it between his fingers. He resisted the urge. He didn't want to screw up any evidence, everything that could help him identify the werewolf was important. And, the thought that this had been left for him made it personal.

A woman he'd been with was dead, and a flower with her blood on it was in his hands. And, it was delivered to the house of another woman he was dating.

All of that added up to a wonderful mess for the fey detective.

"This isn't good," Dyson said. He looked at hale and shook his head at all. "There's a pattern to this."

"What?" Hale said. He looked at the flower in the box and back to Dyson. His expression was easy to read with his mouth slightly open and his eyebrows knitted together. "What are you talking about?"

"There's a pattern to it," Dyson muttered again. His eyes flicked up, settled on Hale's face. "I slept with the victim."

"What?" Kenzi said. "What victim? Is Bo okay?"

"You told me that," Hale said, and too the two detectives Kenzi wasn't there. Fey or not, they were chosen to b law enforcement because they were good at it. They were good at upholding both Fey and human law. And, when they got into crime solving mode everything else stopped mattering.

"This flower is from her room," Dyson said. "I'm certain the blood on the flower is her blood, and it was delivered to Bo's house."

"Wait," Hale said, cocking an eyebrow at Dyson. "You're certain? You mean to tell me you don't know? What happened to those super powered wolf senses?"

"Hello," Kenzi said. "Worried about Bo here."

"Something," Dyson started, his eyes flicking to Kenzi, to the corner of her mouth where a dry patch of milk was hiding. "Is blocking my senses. I can't smell the stench you and Kenzi said was coming off the flower."

"What about Bo?" Kenzi said. "And, what do you mean you can't smell it? It smells like dead wet dog."

"What screws with your senses like that?" Hale asked.

Dyson's eyes flicked back to Kenzi, and she caught him this time. A sudden blush rose to her cheeks, and that was all the confirmation Dyson needed.

"Doesn't matter," he said, feeling the need to protect Kenzi's kiss like it was a treasure. What's more is he felt the need to kiss her again. "The victim, the flower, it's delivery to Bo's house; it all means the killer knows me, and the people I'm close too. It's a warning."

Hale sat there for a minute, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

Kenzi stood with her lips pursed. That light little blush still decorated her cheeks.

Dyson shook his head. "Hale will you take this down to evidence?"

Hale nodded, and took the box from Dyson's extended hand.

%***%

_He knows! He knows! He knows!_ It was the only thing Kenzi could think. Her skin was crawling at the thought, gooseflesh covering her from head to toe, and she couldn't tell if it was from fear of discovery or from the excitement of it. Her lips tingled. She wanted to kiss Dyson again, she wanted to make him her baggage.

Kissing him here, however, would not be kosher. Not in a police station. Not in front of Hale. And, definitely not in a place where it would get back to Bo.

What about Bo?

What happened to Bo!?

Hale brushed past her, his shoulder grazing the edge of her pea coat, but she didn't pay attention to him. Dyson locked his eyes on her, and a whole lot of questions she didn't want to answer were about to fall from his lips. Questions she didn't want to answer.

But, Kenzi had her own question.

"What happened to Bo?"

Dyson shook his head. "Nothing."

"Then why were you talking about women you'd been with? One of whom something happened too."

"It was a girl I met a couple of weeks ago," Dyson said. He took a deep breath and blew it out. "She was murdered last night, or the day before, we're not sure on time of death yet. The flower was in a vase she had in her room. The killer took it, and sent it too me."

"Obviously," Kenzi said. "And, you're playing Bo again?"

"Kenzi," Dyson said. She cut him off.

"Hurting Bo's feelings has worked so well in the past." She shook her head, the flush had filled the rest of her face, but now it was anger. "And, not only are you hurting her feelings, but you're putting her in harms way with this new whack job you're after. That's wonderful."

"Kenzi," Dyson said again. His voice was harder this time, with a commanding edge to it. She never had handled that tone of voice well.

"Oh gods above and below," Kenzi said. "I upset Detective Dyson because he's playing my best friend like a harp." Other officers looked in their direction. Some were furtive glances, others were stares, and two officers, who'd seen this show before, went to get something to eat while they watched the action. "And, now I bet you want me to keep this a secret. Well, I'm not. I'm telling Bo, and she'll do you're job for you, just like she usually does."

"But, you won't tell her you kissed me," Dyson said. His voice had an edge now, but it wasn't one of control. It was a very quiet voice and tone, one that knows how to cut straight to the quick.

Kenzi's eyes bulged. Her jaw worked up and down but no sound came out. And, the flush transformed again, making her ears burn this time. She backed one step away from the table and shook her head.

"I…" she started finally getting her mouth to work. "I didn't kiss you."

Dyson thinned his lips, pressing them together until they were almost pursed. He cocked one eyebrow.

"I'm lactose intolerant, Kenzi," Dyson sad. "Sweet milk is all I've been able to taste, all I've been able to smell." Dyson stood up, took a step forward, and raised a hand to Kenzi's face. She wanted to lean into it, to feel the warmth of his touch and the pulse of his power. A blaze began within her. One summoned by his nearness. One that grew more intense with every evaporating millimeter between them. His hand was electric when he touched, his fingers curled around her cheek, his thumb came to rest on the corner of her mouth, and Kenzi was glad she was already blushing.

"And, you have a little dried milk right here," Dyson said. He rubbed the patch away, and looked in Kenzi's eyes. She saw her desire reflected there. Her wants and needs. Dyson shared them. But, now was not the time to explore further.

"Left over from your bowl of Rice Crispies."

"I wish you weren't a detective," Kenzi said. She stood there while Dyson removed his hand, an empty feeling replaced it, and he grabbed his coat.

"I need to find Bo," Dyson said. "I need to warn her. Can you help me?"

"Uh…" Kenzi said. She felt the PDA in her pocket. "I should be…"

"Good," Dyson said. He gave her a playful shove towards the door, nearly dropping Kenzi on her face. "We need to find her fast."

"What about?"

"_That_," Dyson said. "We'll talk about in private."

A/N: So, I kind of wrote the first quarter of this story…and forgot to type and post it. Totally my fault there guys. But, the good news is, there will be a post every Friday for at least the next four weeks. Then somebody will need to poke me to write the rest of the story. Lol.


	5. Bo's New Case

Chapter 4: Bo's New Case

"Why?" Dyson asked. He was driving down the highway, pushing the car a wee bit faster than the speed limit. The destination was Bo's place. He had to drop Kenzi off.

Kenzi sat in silence, staring out the windshield Her hands were folded in her lap, and every now and then she'd wipe at her nose Tears held station at the corners of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She didn't want Dyson to know she was crying because f him.

"Kenzi," Dyson said, he glanced at her and sighed. "Talk to me, please?"

"I don't know," Kenzi said, and it was a flat out lie She knew perfectly well why she had kissed Dyson. "You weren't supposed to know. You were supposed to think it was Bo."

"But, it wasn't. It was you, and I'd like to know why."

"Then you're going to be waiting a long time." Kenzi said. "I'm not talking about it."

"So you know?" Dyson said.

"Damnit," Kenzi said. She smacked her hands on the dashboard, and glared at Dyson. "Don't you have a case to worry about? Or was it two?"

"Two?" Dyson said. He didn't just glance this time. He twisted his head to the side and stared at Kenzi. His mouth was open just a hair, and his eyes were filled with a strange breed of fright. His hands were shaking on the wheel. He tightened his knuckles until they were white to try and control the shaking. "What do you mean two?"

"Wow, the media knows more about this than the cops?" Kenzi let out a little chuckle, though the situation wasn't really that funny. Especially with the chill crawling up her spine. _What could make Dyson act like that?_ Her mind found the image of the rose, splattered with blood, in the box… and the smell.

"What are you talking about?"

"The news this morning, before…" Kenzi paused, as much as she wanted to scream her feelings for Dyson at the top of her lungs, she couldn't bring herself to say it. "Well, the news said there were two animal attacks. Wait, are you working on an animal attack case?"

Dyson shook his head and shuddered. "Yeah," he said as he looked back out the windshield. "Yeah, 'm working on an animal attack case."

"Then how could you not know about the other?" Kenzi asked. "Don't they link cases like that?"

"They're supposed too," Dyson said. He yanked his phone out of his pocket, slid the little slider bar on the screen, and dialed Hale's number.

"Hale," Dyson said as soon as the phone picked up. Kenzi could hear Hale answer, but not enough to make out what he was saying.

"Do you know anything about another animal attack case?"

"You don't," Dyson said after a pause. "Fuck."

"Kenzi told me about it. Said it was on the news this morning."

"That's what I'm trying to figure out."

"Listen, you find out everything you can about the case, and I'll be back as soon as I drop Kenzi off." Dyson pulled the phone away from his ear and slammed it back into his pocket. Kenzi heard a very light crack, and wondered how long it would take Dyson to figure out he broke it. She didn't say anything though.

"Do the Fey know about it?" Kenzi asked.

"The first attack? Yes." Dyson said. "I think I'd have been told if they knew about the second. "He shook his head again, he couldn't stop shaking it. "This is so screwed up."

"Do you know what's doing it?"

Dyson looked at her; his face paled. He hesitated just a second too long for her to believe the lie. "We're not sure."

"Uh huh," Kenzi said. She nodded, and went right back to staring out the window. They were only a block away from Bo's. They might…

"We're not done talking about the kiss," Dyson said.

"Yes, daddy," Kenzi said and rolled her eyes.

"That's creepy." Dyson said.

Kenzi chuckled. "I dunno, I thought you might be into that sort of thing. Dating a succubus and all that."

"I've never," Dyson paused as he pulled the car to a stop. "You're avoiding the question."

"Bye," Kenzi said She climbed out of the car and shut the door behind her without another word. She got inside the building, closed the door (barely keeping herself from slamming it) and collapsed against the wall. She sank to the ground, and let the tears come. She let the knowledge that Dyson would never, could never, know why fill her, and it tore her heart away.

%***%

Bo came home an hour later and found Kenzi sitting on the couch with a tub of cookies and cream ice cream in her lap. Kenzi was staring at the television, blank with the word game in the top right corner, and the spoon hovering midway between th tub and her mouth.

Bo glanced from the TV too Kenzi and back, and felt an ah-hah moment spread over her. One she was dead wrong about.

"Did Wolfman1086 kick your ass on Halo again?"

Kenzi looked up and jumped when she saw Bo standing there, spilling the tub of ice cream into the floor. "Sweet baby mamma of Jesus, you scared the shit out of me."

"Were you that zombied out?' Bo said. "Christ, it must be something worse than a Halo ass kicking."

"Not really," Kenzi said. She picked up the tub of ice cream, looked at the half that sludged out onto the floor and sighed. She really had been sitting in the same position for a while. "I just haven't felt well."

She started to get up to go and get paper towels, but Bo put a hand on her shoulder and held the other out for the ice cream. "I'll take care of it."

"Okay," Kenzi said. She handed Bo the tub, and took her first long look at the succubus. Something had put a spring into her step. "What are you so happy about?"

"My new case," Bo said. "You remember the woman with the possessed cat?"

"Yeah."

"Well, this new lady is crazier."

"How so?"

"She thinks a werewolf kidnapped her daughter."

"What?" Kenzi said. "Really?"

"Yeah," Bo said, with a smile on her face as she brought the paper towels back into the room. She set to work cleaning up the spilt ice cream with swift economical gestures. Bo had always been better at cleaning than Kenzi, and it was a fact Kenzi didn't mind. She hated cleaning. So, she sat and watched Bo. Kenzi saw what Dyson saw in her. She's a succubus, the perfect mate for any person human or fey. Kenzi trying to compete with her, well, Kenzi would be left in the dust. She expected jealousy, anger, but she only felt defeat.

"…I figure it's a shifter," Bo said. Kenzi snapped herself back to earth and looked at Bo. She was still cleaning up the ice cream.

"Sorry," Kenzi said. "I zombied out again and missed it."

"It's cool," Bo said. She gathered up the paper towels, and walked back towards the kitchen. "I was talking about my case. I checked out the girl's room. It was pink hell, worse than the little sorority you joined."

"Really," Kenzi said.

"Yeah," Bo said. "Anyway, I checked out the room and found little brownish red dog hairs al over the place. So, I figured she's a case like me. Abandoned by her Fey parents and adopted into a human home. I'd say she's a shifter, a wolf or something along those lines. It would explain the claw marks around the window sill."

"You going to track her down?"

"That's what I'm getting paid for." Bo said, cracking a wide smile. "Oh, I've got a picture of her right here."

Bo handed Kenzi the little wallet sized picture. It was a high school yearbook photo complete with gaudy dress, jewelry, and a fake smile. Other than that, she was a pretty typical blonde with blue eyes, and she wore dark makeup around her eyes to accentuate the blue, making them almost ethereal. Kenzi handed the picture back to Bo, and a chill crept up her spine.

"Not sure how much good having the photo's going to be," Kenzi said. "She looks like every blonde I've ever met."

"I know," Bo said, sighing. "But, I've got one good lead. The smell of her room. It was awful. And, I'm betting I can follow it right to the source."

"Don't you think hunting by smell is Dyson's thing?" Kenzi said.

"You think I can't do it?" Bo gave Kenzi a stern hurt look, and Kenzi shrugged.

"No," she said. "I'm just saying Dyson has the wolfman thing going for him."

"Good for him," Bo said, she twisted on her heel, and stormed out of the room. Kenzi sighed, and thought about the smell. The smell of dead wet dog, and she wondered if the smell Bo caught was the same.


	6. The Second Kiss

Chapter 5: The Second Kiss

An angry shouting match took place early in the afternoon. Dyson didn't want Bo to take the assignment. He said it was way too dangerous, and beyond anything Bo had ever handled before. Even more impressive than the lich. Bo's reply was calm confidence in an extremely loud voice.

"You do not control me!" Bo shouted into the receiver. "I can do what I want, when I want. Just because it's a shifter case doesn't mean I can't handle it."

"Bo, you're not understanding me," Dyson said. he'd tried to smooth his voice out, tried to make it seem like there was some reason behind it, but the anger was still there. "It's not a shifter, Bo. It's a werewolf, and werewolves are…"

"Good-bye Dyson," Bo said pulling the touch-screen phone away from her ear and cutting the phone off in the middle of the sentence.

"Werewolves are what?" Kenzi asked, looking at Bo. Bo looked haggard and tired after the telephone fight, not her usual super succubus self. She needed to feed.

"Werewolves aren't real," Bo said. She shook her head. "It's a shifter, no different than Dyson. Should be a piece of cake compared to what I've been dealing with."

"Dyson didn't sound so convinced," Kenzi said.

Bo looked at her, opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated. Kenzi could see the hamster wheel turning in Bo's head. Kenzi wanted to laugh, but held back.

"We were yelling loud enough for you to hear both sides of the conversation?"

Kenzi nodded. "That's usually the way you two fight."

"Really?" Bo asked.

Kenzi nodded again.

"Huh," Bo said, she turned and walked back into the kitchen trying to ditch the conversation. Kenzi was up off the couch before Bo made it to the door, and Kenzi stepped into the kitchen and in front of the refrigerator before Bo got there.

"Kenzi," Bo said.

"No," Kenzi said. "If this case is connected to the one Dyson's working on, I'm going to agree with Dyson. You need to give it up."

"I can't," Bo said with a shrug. "The client already paid half of the fee."

"Then give the money back," Kenzi said.

Bo's expression changed instantly. Her eyes widened, both eyebrows raised, and her mouth dropped open. She grabbed Kenzi's head and started to turn it from side to side.

"Who are you and what have you done with Kenzi?"

Kenzi brushed Bo's hands away from her face, and shook her head. "Bo, Dyson was terrified, terrified of this case. I don't know if it was about werewolves or what, but he was terrified."

Bo shook her head. "Kenzi, I already told you what the case is. It's not connected to Dyson's in anyway. The girl is a shifter who's lost and alone and terrified of her powers. I'm just going to find her and see that she gets the help she needs. I'd have killed for someone to do that for me."

Kenzi shook her head. "I don't know, I just don't know, Bo. I would feel better if you dropped the case."

Bo's lips thinned and her brow furrowed. "I'm not dropping the case, and that's my final say on the situation."

She turned and walked away from Kenzi. A chill ran down Kenzi's spine, one that heralded death. Kenzi felt like she was seeing Bo for the last time.

The Dahl was strangely empty of patrons when Kenzi got there. There were two or three underfey at some of the back tables, and a few fey here and there looking like they were dropped from a pepper shaker. Dyson was sitting at the end of the bar, nursing a glass of gold colored liquid. Kezni made her way across the empty room, and took the stool beside him.

"Where's the bouncer?" Kenzi asked.

"Laying low," Trick said. He brought a glass over to where she sat, and poured a glass of Miller Light for her. He cut the foam, added a touch more, and set it on the bar.

"Thanks," Kenzi said. "Why are they laying low?"

"It became very dangerous to be a fey in this city. All the fey are laying low."

Kenzi gave Trick a troubled expression, but the super short bartender walked down to the other end of the bar. Kenzi sipped the beer and looked at Dyson. He finished taking a drink, more like a swig, of his gold colored liquid and set the tumbler back on the bar. The glass was half empty.

"What're you drinking?" Kenzi asked, anything to break the silence hanging in the bar and over Dyson specifically.

"Fey Brew," Dyson said, his voice mechanical. "It's a beer with a higher alcohol content than moonshine. It's hell on the eyes, but better to get drunk off of. Quicker anyway."

"Why do you want to get drunk?"

"To try and forget the death certificate Bo signed." Dyson shook his head, and took another drink. Shooting the rest of the glass. He flipped the side, and Trick came to fill it another time.

"You need to slow down," Trick whispered. Kenzi acted like she didn't hear it.

"She's convinced it's a shifter," Kenzi said, trying to soothe Dyson's worries. "Someone like her who was abandoned by their fey parents and was raised by humans."

"Maybe it is," Dyson said and took another drink. This one not as large as the last two. "Doubtful though, the fey, light or dark, would have found them by this time. But, anything's possible. Did she tell you anything about the scene she went too? Like where it was?"

"No," Kenzi said.

"Did she say anything about a smell?"

"Yes," Kenzi said. "But, she didn't describe it."

"Hmm," Dyson said. His jaw was set, and under the blush created by the Fey Brew he was pale. Kenzi could almost feel the fear gnawing at his insides. It felt just like the pulse of his power, only this one was cold, cold as an arctic glacier.

Kenzi took a sip of her beer, and found she didn't want it anymore. _Dyson's afraid,_ she thought. _He's not afraid. He's terrified_. Kenzi shuddered.

"What is a werewolf?" Kenzi asked.

"A nasty piece of work," Dyson said, and let the conversation drop. Kenzi almost continued it, but couldn't bring herself to do it. Dyson was worried about Bo, afraid of what might happen to her; afraid of what might happen to all the women he's loved. Talking about the werewolf would only make things worse for him.

Dyson finished the rest of his drink in one long swig, stood up, hitching his pants up while he was standing, and fell straight to the floor, his head making a hollow thump as it hit the ground.

"Dyson," Kenzi cried, jumping off her stool and down to Dyson's side. Every fey in the bar looked at the pair. Trick rushed around the side of the bar and over too Dyson.

"How many has he had?" Kenzi asked.

"That last one made five."

"Why didn't you cut him off?"

"The mood he was in," Trick said, shaking his head. "He would have jumped the bar and poured them himself."

Trick turned to the rest of the small group. "Can someone help me get him down stairs?"

Two body builder Fey got up from their table, grabbed Dyson, none too gently (dark fey), and followed Trick down to the second level. Kenzi followed.

Kenzi volunteered to stay with him after the dark fey got him into bed, and after Trick erased their most recent memories—mainly those having to do with Trick's living quarters—and sent them on their way. Trick left to go and get a cold compress, and mix up a little potion that might help Dyson out.

Kenzi crawled up onto the bed, and couldn't stop herself from caressing Dyson's cheek. The stubble rasped under her skin. Dyson's eyes popped open a little.

"You have soft hands," Dyson said. Kenzi jerked her hand backward hard enough to knock herself off the bed. Her head hit the ground, with a hollow thunk, and when she got back onto the bed she was cradling it with both hands.

"Thank you," she said, her voice dripping with irritation and sarcasm.

"Why did you kiss me?" Dyson asked.

"Let's not talk about this now," Kenzi said. "You took a nasty bump to the head, and you should be resting."

"Would you kiss me again?" Dyson asked.

"What?" Kenzi said, unable to mask her surprise.

"If I said I love you," Dyson said, his eyes, glazed over, locked with Kenzi's. She could see the truth in them, and it scared her. "Would you kiss me again."

"You're too drunk, and don't know what you're saying."

"I love you," Dyson said. "Kiss me."

Kenzi couldn't resist anymore.


	7. Missing and Presumed Dead

Chapter 6: Missing and Presumed Dead

"It's been two days, Dyson," Kenzi said into the phone. Her voice had a frantic edge to it and her face matched it. Her eyes were rolling, trying to read Bo's case notes as fast as possible… for the sixteenth time. It's a pitty Bo wasn't much of a note taker. There were no clues as to where she might be. There wasn't even any evidence to support where she had gone. The notes described the victim's room, the contents of her dresser and desk, and the strange smell in the air. It didn't give the address the victim lived at, it didn't give the name of the client.

The smell.

Dead wet dog.

The smell of a werewolf maybe.

What if the werewolf had caught Bo?

"I know Kenzi," Dyson said, his voice had a strange strained tone to it. Part of it was concern, Kenzi figured, while the other parts could be embarrassment or irritation. Kenzi had avoided Dyson since the second kiss. She didn't know if Dyson remembered it or not, and she wasn't going to bring it up.

"There are just," Dyson paused, sighed. "There are just a lot of problems in the city right now. I'm as worried about Bo as you are. More so. We can only assume she was one of the targets of this killer on the loose. Plus the case she's working on."

"We need to find her."

"I know," Dyson said.

"Could the werewolf she was talking about have anything to do with this?" Kenzi asked. "That's what her case was about."

There was a long pause from Dyson's side. Fear began to creep up Kenzi's spine. A fear that maybe she was right about the werewolf problem.

"Werewolves aren't real," Dyson said, his voice mechanical. A lie. One easy to see though.

"Tell me the truth, Dyson."

"Could you send me Bo's case notes," Dyson said. "They might have something important in them."

"They don't," Kenzi said. She rocked back in her chair, staring at the computer screen, and willing it to say something, anything, different. Like an email from Bo. One saying she's okay, and has already cracked the case. Or just the address of the woman who hired Bo.

"Send them to me anyway."

"Tell me the truth."

"I've told you everything I know," Dyson said. His voice was still strained, and Kenzi could see the irritation level rising, like it was a gauge slowly filling up.

"No, Dyson, you haven't," Kenzi said. She spun the chair around and walked over to the window. Now, the morning light was spilling in, but later the moon would rise high above the horizon. Would that moon be full? Would she hear a strange Fey howling at the cratered satellite? "You haven't told me about werewolves."

"There's nothing to know about werewolves," Dyson said, his voice mechanical again. "What human's think of as werewolves are just shifters. There's no such thing as werewolves."

"And, pigs can fly." Kenzi said.

"Damnit, Kenzi," Dyson said. The tone of this voice shifted again. It was frustration now. Kenzi smiled, she was getting under his skin, maybe, just maybe deep enough to finally get some answers. But, the procedure to get them would have to be round about.

"Why'd you want me to kiss you?"

"What?" Dyson said, knocked off his guard, and left floating.

"Kenzi," Dyson paused, another sigh. She wished she could see his face. The hurt there might destroy her. But, the admission of his love could only come from the bottle. There was, and could not be, any more to it. "I was drunk, and I don't even remember what happened. I know I asked you to kiss me, but I don't know why."

Her chest, filled with air she didn't know she was holding, deflated. Tears crawled into the corners of her eyes. She tried to blink them away; wished she hadn't asked. Dyson, player or not, loved Bo. He could never be with Kenzi. Shifters mated for life. The tears didn't go away, and now there was a pain in her chest.

"I've always heard that the words of a drunk man are words of truth," Kenzi said. The spunk had fled her being. "I wonder if that's true. And, I wonder about werewolves."

%***%

"Kenzi," Dyson said, but the line went dead, right after the remark about werewolves. For what was probably the tenth time today, Dyson sighed. He couldn't help it, couldn't keep it from coming, and hadn't been able to control it at all.

Two days. Two days had passed since he'd last seen Bo; two days since he'd admitted his feelings for Kenzi. And, for the last two days he'd thought of nothing but the two women in his life.

Bo and Kenzi; were they on the killers list? Bo was, without a doubt. The last two vics had been his lovers, for however short a time, and they were, well, it's not hard to guess what they were. But, what was the connection to the werewolf.

Dyson had never been involved with a werewolf case before, not a hunt, or anything. And, the only time he was even close to them was near a channeler colony in what was now West Virginia during the American War for Independence. The channelers handled that situation, and, by comparison, were far more capable of dealing with a werewolf than a typical fey.

He wished Mae was here.

Dyson shook his head, knocking the thoughts away. "If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride," he whispered to himself, and looked back at the computer screen. Whether Kenzi was mad at him or not, she had sent Bo's case notes, and after skimming them, found that Kenzi was right. There was very little of importance in the notes. The smell, of course, Bo was on the trail of the werewolf, and it added two possibilities to the mix.

One: The missing girl was another of Dyson's former lovers.

Two: The missing girl was the werewolf.

But, why attack the women who were once his lovers? Unless those possibilities were both correct. What if the werewolf was one of his former lovers? Somebody who took the one-night-stand a little too far? That would narrow the list, but, unfortunately, the list of Dyson's one-night-stands was almost as long as the original list of suspects. It did, however, eliminate the men on the list.

Dyson looked over at Hale—bent over his desk, hard at work on his computer—scratched the day's growth of stubble on his chin, and turned back to his own desk.

The flower was back, wrapped in a clear plastic evidence bag. It had already been through the extreme level of the CSI lab's tests, and the results it brought back were nearly pointless. It was a very common type of white rose, bought at either Walmart or Kroger, and kept in a vase with very little water and a lot of feed. The blood on the rose was the same type as the vic's with no impurities in the blood. Those impurities would have been an indication of extreme drug use, or lycanthropy. The two were hard to distinguish. Just another way for the werewolf to hide itself. And, there was a partial print on the petals nearest to the stem, but it didn't have enough match points to be used for identification.

In short, the flower was a dead end. Even the werewolf smell, that clung to it like a vice, was a dead end. The werewolf's smell was slowly filling the city, and would make it impossible to track the beast at all in the next few days. Not that either side of the fey were too keen on tracking it.

Dyson looked back at the computer screen, and thought of Kenzi, not Bo. "The words of a drunk man are words of truth," he muttered. Maybe she's right. Maybe all this time it had been Kenzi he was in love with. Playing Bo, adding to the lists of suspects on an almost daily basis, hadn't bothered him in the least. But, now…

Now, thinking about Kenzi, about putting her on that list bothered him something fierce. He didn't want her to be on the list. He wanted to wipe the list clean. Maybe… Just maybe… he did love Kenzi.

He thought of Bo, and knew he would have to put their relationship to rest. Then, and only then, could he have one with Kenzi.

Dyson shook his head again.

"Where are you, Bo?"

Author's Note: Just felt the random need to check in and make sure everybody knows about my blog, Twitter, and Facebook. At these lovely locations you can see updates on my original work, random things that seem to happen way too often, and you get to listen to me whine and complain. Anywho, that's all from me. And, if the links don't work, check my profile page for them :)


	8. Confirmed Dead

Chapter 7: Confirmed Dead

Bill Thompson, a man of little import (even in his own estimation), made his way through the bowls of the Dolphin Hotel. It was the second largest hotel in the city, and if he were the head maintenance man he would brag about it. But, he was just a grunt, and had been for the last fifteen years of his life. He'd tried for the head job a time or two, but each time someone with a great deal more charisma swooped in and stole the job away.

Bill Thompson didn't even know what charisma meant.

He made his way past the laundry room, a large sterile room that took up half the length of the building with most of that space dedicated to long industrial washers and driers, and this one terrible machine nicknamed The Mangler. It looked as if it might rise up off the floor and give chase to those nearest. Bill suppressed the shudder, but the chill made it's way up his spine.

It was then that he caught the smell. A putrid carrion odor, like dead wet dog, just slapped him in the face. He scrunched his nose and his eyebrows together, and he raised an arm to fend off whatever might be the source of the smell.

"The hell is that?" Bill said, gagging on the stench. And, like the blonde bimbo in a horror movie, he tried to find the smell.

Bill moved past the water heaters, the huge bank of electrical wires, and past the two monster sized furnaces. The farther he went, the darker it got. His eyes kept flicking to the ceiling, finding long lengths of fluorescent bulbs missing, and his feet kept crunching glass. A jet of steam issued from the corner of one of the furnaces. Bill swallowed, hard, and approached.

Four long creases had been forced into the metal barrier, two of them punctured it. The creases weren't anything made by a human being. He wanted to reach out and touch them, hoping they would go away and still the beating in his breast. The smell only got worse.

A sound, like knuckles rapping on concrete, echoed through the room. It cut through the steam, and through Bill's heart, like a long bloody knife. Bill felt the warmth run down his leg, but still he moved forward. He could hear the rational part of his brain screaming it's warning, telling him he was just like that blonde bimbo everybody knows is going to die. His feet weren't under his control, however, they were moved by an ancient morbid curiosity. The desire to see what monster crouched in the closet, to see what body lay under the sheet.

Bill rounded the corner, looked right down into the bottom of the elevator shaft. The cables were slicked with some brackish liquid, and there was something slumped in the corner. He unhooked the flashlight from his belt, and sent the beam down into the corner.

What he found made him scream. It made him vomit. And, each sound tried to drown the other out.

%***%

The lobby of the Dolphin was a fantastic affair. Dyson didn't know it, but like the laundry room, the lobby took up the whole front half of the building's first floor. The color scheme for the walls and curtains was a deep navy, and the pattern on the carpet could vaguely be called nautical. There were floor to ceiling windows every five feet, letting the morning light flood the room.

The furniture was simple, compared too many high class hotels, with black leather couches and chairs and stained mahogany coffee tables with magazines and thick hard back books lying on top of them. It was supposed to feel homey, welcoming, but to Dyson it was clinical. Another crime scene for him to memorize and dissect. He took a deep breath, and something hitched in his throat.

_She's dead_, the thought came to him. Not as prophecy, but as cold hard fact. The corpse in the elevator shaft was Bo. It had to be. They wouldn't have held him up here so long if it wasn't.

Hale stepped out of the service stairwell, hidden around the corner by the front desk, and he was pale as a black man could be. His eyes were wide with a thin sheen of water covering them, and tears were pooled in the corners. He was fighting it, with all his strength he was fighting it. He was being strong for Dyson.

"Is it Bo?" Dyson asked the instant Hale reached him. Hale sighed and shook his head.

"We don't know who it is."

"But, it's Bo," Dyson said. He sat down, hard, as the floor dropped out from below. (To his luck, there was a plush leather armchair for him to land on.) Dyson's hands began to shake. He loved Kenzi, had loved her since they met, but he did have feelings for Bo. She was always there, always willing to make trouble for the fey no matter what side of the conflict she was on.

"We can't confirm that," Hale said.

"Why not?" Dyson said. He snapped the words out and glared up at Hale. If only Dyson was a fey that could kill with a look.

"There are problems," Hale said.

"What kind of problems?" Dyson paused, giving Hale a few seconds to answer. When none came, Dyson demanded.

"Take me down there."

"You don't want to go down there, man," Hale said. He raised one arm up above his head. Hale ran his hand over his scalp like he still had hair, and found the sweet spot at the junction between his skull and neck. He rubbed there, methodically trying to make the knot go away.

"Take me down!" Dyson said. He didn't yell, but his voice was filled with damnation and command. Hale didn't respond, he turned and walked back to the service stairwell. Dyson followed.

%***%

The trip down was short, then the winding maze through the furnaces and water heaters, and finally the elevator shaft.

Cops were crawling all over the scene with caution tape spread around a couple of the big machines to keep the workers at bay. But, like it would be on the surface, the rubberneckers were out. Waiters on break, maintenance, housekeeping, even a few of the managers smoking cigarettes in the corner. Dyson saw them all, and registered nothing.

The smell was thick enough to gag on. The werewolf had been down here alright. Dyson had to stop, try to catch his breath by breathing through his mouth. He could taste the creature. Carrion. Fey blood. Disease. Human. All of these were the flavors dancing on his tongue. And, there was one more, one familiar, a particular type of perfume, but he couldn't place it.

It wasn't Bo's.

Dyson ducked under the caution tape, and looked around the corner. The tears he expected weren't there. His eyes had become too dry for that. But, the terror or what he saw climbed his spine and nestled itself in his brain like a rat.

"Oh, Gods," Dyson said.

"Told you," Hale said in a humorless voice.

It wasn't hard to tell why they couldn't identify the corpse. The head was missing, physically torn from the body with jagged stretched strips of flesh hanging free. The arms and legs had been consumed up to the first joints, and the chest, split lie a clam, was a hollow cavity. All the food in Dyson's stomach lurched at the same time. He hit his knees and hurled.

"Everybody's had that reaction," Hale said. He was turned away from the corpse.

"This is how they feed." Dyson said. He looked from the corpse to Hale.

"Yeah," Hale said. "This is how they feed."

"Is it Bo?"

"We don't know."

Author's Note: Just felt the random need to check in and make sure everybody knows about my blog, Twitter, and Facebook. At these lovely locations you can see updates on my original work, random things that seem to happen way too often, and you get to listen to me whine and complain. Anywho, that's all from me. Same as last week, if the links don't work, check out my profile page.


	9. Another Gift

Chapter 8

Kenzi moved through the empty house like a ghost. She hadn't been at the crime scene, hadn't seen the meticulous photos the police took of the scene, but she had seen Dyson's face, the zombie grey skin tones and the horrible thousand yard stare. She'd heard his voice, like he was talking from a far away planet.

Kenzi wondered what her last words to Bo were.

She couldn't remember.

That was damn funny, wasn't it? You can't remember if you told the deceased if you loved them just before they left the house that morning. You can't remember if you were fighting before they left, or if everything was okay. It's like death has this funny way of making everything in the present stand out in 20/20 high definition, but it makes what came before trivial.

Kenzi wondered what her last words to Bo were.

There was hope, Dyson had said. They weren't able to make a positive ID as there was nothing to ID the corpse with. But the description of the clothes Bo had been wearing matched that of the corpse, and Bo had been gone for two days. She'd never been gone for that long without checking in, in some way shape or form. Kenzi sucked in a hard breath, one that seemed to take forever to end, and let it out.

How can she be dead?

That was the kicker wasn't it?

Bo was a superhero. She was Iron Man and Superman all rolled into one. She went out and kicked ass and took names in a way neither of those guys had ever thought of doing. She was a succubus, she was a warrior, and she was much more…human…than any other fey Kenzi had met. It screamed Start Trek to her, but like Spock, Bo was so much more human than your average Joe. And, at least it seemed like she fought to the end. If the maintenance level of the Dolphin was any indication.

Again, though, Kenzi hadn't seen it. She could only go on Dyson's word.

Still, Kenzi wondered through the empty house, looking at things that reminded her of Bo. The sword she'd bought to try and help Bo. The funny arm thing Bo wore during some of her later jobs. She didn't take it with her, Kenzi thought it was strange, but Bo figured it was just a lost shifter. Nothing dangerous.

"Was it a werewolf, Bo?" Kenzi said into the thin air. She looked around, looked at the interior of the abandoned building they called home. Bo had been trying to restore it in her free time. She told Kenzi it was something she'd always wanted to do. "Dyson tells me they aren't real, but I don't believe him. If you were here with me, would you tell me they were real?"

Her hand knocked something on a side table, and the crash it made as it hit the floor scared the hell out of Kenzi. She jumped, twisted, and fell onto the kitchen floor. She looked, and expected to see some grizzly Hollywood monster busting through the wall, ready to eat her face.

There was nothing.

Kenzi looked at the floor, and found a snow-globe smashed open on the floor, water and fake snow spread across the boards. It was something Trick had given Bo for Christmas last year, or the year before. Said he got it from some writer guy travelling through Maine. It had a history, was stored in a haunted house for years, and dug out by the writer guy when he was a kid.

The house in the globe looked evil through the cracked and jagged glass. It looked like it was staring down at her, judging her for letting Bo go and get herself killed. Looking at it long enough, Kenzi expected the little shutter on the window to open up, and a face appear behind the plastic glass. It would be Bo, fish pale with deep deep claw marks across her face and one of her eyes popped and hanging from its fleshy little connection to the brain. Her other eye would be damning.

Then…

Oh, and then…

Bo, would reach out with one hand, but it wouldn't be a hand. It would be a fur covered, claw filled paw, and Bo would use that paw to tear Kenzi's stomach out.

Kenzi jerked, jumping to her feet, and kicking the snow globe as hard as she could. It flew across the room, and smashed against the far wall. The ancient plastic and stonework notwithstanding, and fell to the floor in more jagged crunched pieces.

She shook her head, looking away from the remains of the little paperweight. She shook her head, and held her hands up to her ears. The silence of the house was maddening. She tried to block it out. Tried.

Booze.

That was the kicker.

Just what she needed.

She'd go down to the Dahl, and drink until everything was right in the world. Maybe Dyson would be there, and, even under the circumstances, there was that uncontained hope that he would be. That hope that maybe, just maybe, he would ask her to kiss him again.

And again.

And…

%***%

The Dahl wasn't hopping, but there were more people here than the other night. Kenzi tried to remember it as the night of her second kiss, but nothing that was supposed to be happy was allowed in the bar tonight. All the fey there were clustered in tightly knit groups and the mood was somber. It was like a rain cloud had appeared in the Dahl and blocked out the sunlight.

_That was apropos_, Kenzi thought. They lost one of their own tonight, she might not have been a light fey or a dark fey, but Bo was a fey with friends on both sides. They were here tonight, mourning the loss.

Kenzi's eyes flicked from table to table to table, searching for Dyson, and once again she found him at the bar. Worry leapt up into her chest and throat. Was he drinking Fey Brew again?

The trip over was short, but it was a maze, and she couldn't keep her eyes on Dyson the whole time. But, from what she did see, Dyson wasn't drinking anything at all. That was confirmed when she reached the bar. He didn't have the same undead look he'd had earlier.

"Hey," Kenzi said. Dyson glanced over at her, and forced a smile. He might not have looked undead, but he still looked like he was drug through the mud.

"I've been sitting here for two hours," he said. "I haven't had anything to drink, I've just been listening. Listening for clues. But, I've not heard anything. There's nothing to hear. For three days now, no one has seen Bo. It's like she went off on her case and disappeared off the map. She'd left no trail that anybody could follow, and I've tried to pick up her scent. Nothing. This goddamn overpowering smell is screwing up everybody's senses."

"Are you ready to admit werewolves are real?" Kenzi asked. There was a bitter note in her voice, one that hung in the air. Dyson could feel it, and he sighed.

"It's a shifter, Kenzi," Dyson said. "Not a werewolf. It's just one that's gone past what a normal shifter is. Maybe it's a shifter that became a lich."

"That's bullshit Thornwood!" One of the fey said, shouted really. Every head in the bar turned to look at him. He was one of the body builder dark fey that helped Dyson out the other day. Now, he was dressed in the blues and blacks of a police officer. He was an officer in one of the precincts on the Dark Fey side of the city.

"This isn't some fucking fairy tell world. It's reality. The Norn, the Norn and their fucking plague on the fey. Turning the hunters into the hunted. And, it's all fine and dandy until one of them shows up. One of the fucking wolves. You know it's here, you can smell it just like I can, just like everybody in this bar can. Hell, even the human will be able to smell it soon. All the humans. The wolf is fucking real. And, it killed your fucking girlfriend.


	10. Messenger

Chapter 9: Messenger

Dyson leapt, there was no moment of thought between the comment and his actions. He bared his fangs, his hands turned to claws, and silver hair grew up to his elbows. He hit the dark fey cop, and the two fell in a tangle to the ground.

The body builder hissed, and flashed fangs of his own, the inch long ivory blades of a vampire. His head jerked like a snakes and he buried his face in Dyson's throat.

Kenzi screamed.

Dyson howled, and punched. He hit the body builder in the ribs, once. Twice. Three times. It was possible to hear the crunch of the vampire's ribs as six of them broke.

The vampire twisted back, his chin slicked with Dyson's blood, and he shoved. Dyson flew back, slammed into the bar, and rolled over top it. He stayed down for a moment, long enough for everyone in the bar to orient on his position.

The vampire climbed to his feet watching the bar. He stretched, pulling the arm well above his head and popped his shoulder. All of the ribs running down that side popped too, as they righted themselves. He started towards the bar, drawing his gun.

Dyson's hand appeared, for just a second and a bottle went flying through the air. A rag was stuffed in the neck. The rag was on fire. The vampire had about a second to shield his eyes.

The bottle burst against his arm, and flaming _Everclear_ coated his body. Dyson jumped up onto the bar, and threw himself at the burning vampire. He took him in a tackle, his legs positioned around the vampire's waist. The flames started to lick at Dyson's clothes. Dyson laid into the vampire, drawing his claws across every available surface.

Kenzi was the first one to hear it. The two slamming doors. One leading to the outside world, the other leading to Trick's private quarters. She heard the cock of the crossbow and the twang of its release. The silver bolt plunged into Dyson's shoulder.

Dyson howled and fell back off the burning vampire. Kenzi rushed to Dyson. Other fey went to the aid of the vampire, putting him out as quickly as possible.

Trick walked into the bar proper, his face twisted in a grimace. "What in the nine layers of Hell is going on?"

Kenzi looked at him, saw him holding the crossbow, and she wanted to strangle him. Beat him. Do something to repay the pain he'd caused Dyson. Instead she turned back to Dyson.

"Are you okay?" she said and looked at him. The shoulder, the puncture wounds, and the burns across his lower body. "Dumb question."

"I've been worse," he said sitting up. He looked at his shoulder and sighed. He grabbed the bolt and cried out as he pulled the bolt out.

By that point, everybody in the bar had turned from Dyson, Trick, and the crispy vampire. They were looking back towards the outside door, and the crowd was parting.

Hale walked through it, his eyes wide as saucers, and a box clenched in his hand, clenched so tightly in his hand that the corners were failing. Something was dripping on the floor behind him.

"Dyson," he said. He didn't look down at the floor, he didn't look like he could see at all. In fact he looked Grecian, running from Marathon to Athens with the word _nike_ on his lips. He wasn't here to declare victory, though. Dyson looked at him, tried to make his mouth work and couldn't.

"Dyson," Hale said again. He lifted the box up and out, like someone was there to take it. "This is…"

Hale stopped, his eyes glazed completely, and he fell forward. He struck the ground and a final rush of air plunged out of his lungs. Never again would Hale sing or draw breath. The wicked deep claw marks on his back saw to that.

"Oh gods," Trick said.

Dyson couldn't stop staring at his friend, his partner.

"Hale," he whispered. Tears broke, and rolled down his cheeks, marching like soldiers to their deaths. He hadn't cried for Bo, or the other women that were lost to this monster. But, Hale. Hale was the final straw.

"You see this," the crispy vampire said in a rasping wheezing voice. He was getting slowly to his feet, his uniform was burnt almost completely off, and his burly body builder friend was supporting him. "This is what the wolf is after. It's not me. It's not you. It's him!"

He pointed at Dyson with his last cry. Again Kenzi heard the click of the crossbow.

"You need to leave," Trick said. He had another silver bolt loaded, aimed straight at the vampire's heart. "Or this will get messy."

The crispy vampire stared at Trick for a moment, trying to judge whether it was a bluff or not. He decided it wasn't.

"Yeah," the crispy vampire said. "Yeah, I don't want to be anywhere near the wolf's bull's-eye."

He and his friends backed away from Trick. Then turned and left the bar in earnest.

Trick removed the bolt, then released the tension on the crossbow's string. He looked at Hale, then Dyson. "What happened? Really?"

"The wolf," Kenzi said. "I guess the werewolf got him."

Trick looked at the body lying on his floor. Hale. He'd almost asked Hale to join Dyson as his guardian. Trick fetched a sigh, one that started deep in his belly and seemed to expel the weight that was gathered on his shoulders.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Trick said, looking up at the crowd of bar patrons. "The wolf is still at large. I think it would be wise for you to return to your homes and lock yourselves in for the night. Put up whatever barriers will make you feel comfortable. And, for the gods, please travel in groups."

A murmur travelled through the crowd and each of the patrons nodded. Home would be best. At least that was the seed Trick planted. Sometimes he didn't need blood to take care of a situation.

The crowd broke up, and each of the patrons left. All of them moving in groups. Trick would pray for those last few, the ones who would have to make the long trek in the dark…alone.

Dyson had drawn up into the fetal position, with his head resting against his knees. His ribs were rocked by silent sobs, and his forearms glistened with the wetness of his tears. Trick fetched another sigh, and felt for a moment that he should paten that sigh, and charge everyone who used it a quarter. He shook his head.

"We need to take care of those wounds," Trick said. "Will you help me?"

Kenzi nodded, and the two of them coaxed Dyson to his feet. They led him downstairs, and laid him on the massive four poster bed. Trick left the room, gathered his many remedies, and set to work.

"What happened?" Kenzi asked.

"It's a shifter thing," Trick said, as he applied a salve to Dyson's burns. "Especially with the wolf shifters. When a werewolf appears in town, all wolf shifters are immediately under suspicion. Other Fey believe the wolf-shifters feel a bond with the werewolf, and sympathize with it. And, other Fey often attack wolf-shifters as a way of getting back at the werewolf."

Trick sat in silence for a moment. He thought about the body lying upstairs, and of the box it held. A box the werewolf felt was important enough for Dyson to have.

"In reality, there is no such connection. The wolf-shifters are secretive about their culture within the fey world, but, if anything, they hate the wolves far more than any other fey."

"What are werewolves?" Kenzi asked.

"Now is not the time for that answer," Trick said. "It would take a long time to explain, and I have a great deal of work to do here."

Kenzi scrunched her face up, and was about to say something highly untoward, but Trick cut her off.

"Hale was murdered as a part of the package he carried. The werewolf found it very important for it to reach Dyson, otherwise Hale would have wound up looking very much like the corpse discovered earlier today."

"So," Kenzi said.

"We need to know what's in it."

"Oh," Kenzi said.

%***%

Kenzi found her way upstairs, and over to Hale's body in as short a period as possible. She didn't want to be far from Dyson, but Trick was right. The package was bound to be another gruesome message from Dyson's werewolf stalker.

She stood over Hale's body, looking down at the wounds on his back. There were five long vertical marks cutting from shoulder to hip, and they were six inches at least. They cut right through his spine in five places. Kenzi could see the shattered bone of the vertebra, and the bloody tangled mess of his central nervous system. It had been a long time since her high school anatomy class, but she was sure it should have been impossible for him to walk any distance after he received that wound.

A shudder crept up her spine, a shudder at the very thought of this werewolf's power. And, another feeling started. An itching, burning sensation between her shoulder blades. It felt…

It felt like she was being watched.

Kenzi looked around, two times in quick succession, and so far as she could tell, the room was empty.

Still, she bent and grabbed the box quickly, and made her escape as fast as she could.

%***%

Not all of the patrons listened to Trick. Not all of the patrons heard the ring of command in his voice. That was one of the good things about certain conditions. And, a certain someone still sat in the booth furthest from the light, and had removed the light bulb from their hanging lamp.

Currently, the only light that certain someone had was the light of a cigarette's cherry. They took a drag, and their yellowish-gold eyes glowed in the red light.

They had watched the chaos of the bar fight. They had watched the chaos of the black man's death. And, they had watched the pithy little girl as she came to retrieve the package.

Their smile was revealed by the next drag on the cigarette.

The chaos was working well, just as they had planned.

Dyson would soon be theirs, and theirs alone.

A/N: Almost forgot to post this week. Sorry about that.


	11. Coffee and an Ear

Chapter 10: Coffee and an Ear

Kenzi shot furtive glances at Dyson every couple of seconds. They were more to make sure that Dyson was still there than anything else. He wore a mummy's worth of bandages under his clothes, and black glasses with heavily tinted lenses. His eyes were still red and puffy, and the tear tracks were still there. No amount of scrubbing would remove them.

"Paid time off," Dyson said, his voice threatening to crack. He shook his head. Trick had used his connections to get Hale's corpse moved to an innocuous location for the police to find. The chief had decided, that with the death of his partner, Dyson was too close to the case, and needed a few days, or weeks to recoup. From what Trick had been saying, The Ash was behind that decision.

"Paid time off," Dyson said again, and spit into the street.

Kenzi sipped at her coffee. She hated coffee, especially black coffee, but that's how she ordered it. She wanted to share Dyson's pain, maybe alleviate some of it, by making herself uncomfortable. She had her own pain to worry about. A minor intimate relationship with Hale hung over her head, and there was still the loss of Bo. Though some elements, the police specifically, kept saying it wasn't confirmed.

"Do you have the box?" Dyson asked.

"We shouldn't look," Kenzi said. "For your sake and mine we shouldn't look."

"The monster is targeting me, Kenzi," Dyson said. He shuddered at those words. "It's targeting me, and I have to stop it."

"Dyson," Kenzi said.

"Just let me see the damn box!" Dyson raised his voice, and the frustration hiding behind it was frightening. Kenzi had a thought, Dyson as a small child lost in the woods. He was naked and the terror of his first transformation was still thick in his mind. He heard things, and smelled things he shouldn't be able to in the darkness. The fear was on him, surrounding him, and he did the one thing a child could do against so many unknown monsters, he curled up in a ball, and he cried, cried for his mother.

That was the man she was looking at now. A child lost in the forest, crying for his mother, and he knew it. The frustration showed it. He could do nothing against this monster. Except look at the box.

Everybody else at the café turned to look at them, but they each turned back to their own business when Dyson looked around, and locked his haggard hidden eyes on each of them.

Kenzi pulled out the box. It was a small thing, just as the last had been, and its corners were bowed where Hale's death grip had been. She set it on the table, and stared at it. Dyson stared at it.

Neither moved to open it.

Then the box beeped.

Kenzi and Dyson's reactions were instant, they both twisted back away from the table, knocking their chairs over. They put a good six feet between them and the table, and they almost ran into other patrons.

"What the hell?" one fat man in a business suit cried. He was now wearing his double shot espresso. Dyson silenced him with a single deadly glare.

The box beeped again.

"It's not a bomb," a woman to the right of Kenzi said. "It's a damn cellphone. Mine has the same text alert sound."

Kenzi stared at her for a moment, and a blush rose to her cheeks. She took one tentative step forward, then righted her metal chair and sat down again. She looked at the box. Dyson joined her. He didn't reach for the box.

"Open it," Dyson said. Without thinking about it, Kenzi did as she was told. She split the tape holding the lid closed, and slowly pulled it back.

There were three objects inside. One of them made Kenzi want to throw up. A human finger with two rings on it. A blood spattered, familiar looking cellphone, and a slip of high quality resume style paper. Kenzi pulled the cellphone out.

It was a beaten and battered industrial strength smart phone. It was Bo's, and there was a single waiting text message. Kenzi opened the message screen.

What are you waiting for? The Rapture?

There was no return number.

Kenzi set the phone down, and returned her attention to the box. The finger, it was important, or it wouldn't be in the box. A shudder ran through her as she reached for it.

"Don't touch it," Dyson said. He picked up a napkin, reached in, and pulled it out. "I can take this to Lauren, get her to run the prints through our registry, might tell us who the vic was."

Kenzi nodded as Dyson wrapped the finger, rings and all, into the napkin, and tucked it into his jacket pocket. Kenzi couldn't help it; she glanced around hoping no one had saw the finger. Her eyes did light on one person. A woman with blonde hair on the far end of the café. She wore black glasses, just like Dyson's.

"A letter," Dyson said. He'd pulled the heavy parchment out of the box and unfolded it. He was carefully holding it by the corners, so as not to put more prints on it. Dyson put it on the table, and pushed it towards Kenzi. She read it:

Dyson,

You are reading this now, and if my guess is correct, you still don't know who I am. As for now, I like it that way. And, let me be so bold as to make another assumption.

The finger isn't familiar to you, is it?"

Why should it be?

The number of women who've run their fingers through your hair is countless. Both human, and amongst the secretive Fey. But, I'm not here to badger you about your love life.

I'm sure you noticed the rings, a simple gold wedding band, and a cubic zirconia engagement ring. Like the rock, those rings are a sham. A marriage forced between a man and a woman because she got pregnant at the tender age of sixteen.

If you can't guess, the child was your bastard. It was born in a tangle of twisted human and wolf limbs. The child died, unsurprisingly, and the "father" killed himself after the birth. The woman you fucked, impregnated and abandoned lived a long lonely life. Until I freed her from it.

I've freed each of the women you have tortured and abandoned. And, I will continue to do so, until you find me. Then I will release you from your own torment.

Find me soon Dyson. Before I get bored.

Sincerely,

Your Little Angel of Death

Kenzi looked up at Dyson, and shuddered. She felt fear creep up her spine. Was she going to pay in blood for her love of this man?

_NO!_

She slammed the door shut to those fears. They had no place in her life, no place in her love for Dyson. She looked him in the eyes, saw the pain hiding there, the pain that was about to spill out over his face.

"Don't even say it, wolf boy," she said with a new sunny smile on her face. "The safest place for me to be is right beside you. Besides"—the smile twisted into a wide shit eating grin—"I haven't been tortured by you. Not yet anyway."

Kenzi punched his arm, and he tried to laugh and a smile. They weren't forced, but they weren't more than skin deep.

The phone beeped again.

Kenzi turned to it, and opened the message window.

Aren't we the sweet little love birds. But, hasn't the detective realized the black haired bitch is holding evidence?

"It can see us," Kenzi said. Both of them twisted around, scanning the crowd for anyone looking too intently at them. Nothing. Kenzi couldn't even find the blonde woman.

"Evidence," Dyson muttered, under his breath. "Does that thing have a camera on it?"

"Yeah," Kenzi said. She slapped herself for not thinking of it. She worked the phone for a minute and pictures, terrible, horrifying pictures were on there. They started with murder. Two or three women, Kenzi couldn't tell, whose bodies hadn't been found yet. And, when the police did find them there would be a high number of officers throwing up. Kenzi had to stop herself from retching.

The next three pictures were of Bo. One just after her hand had been cut off. One with the living shit beat out of Bo, and a gag in her mouth. And, last was a picture of her back to the camera. There was a burnt out exit sign above her head, and a busted to hell popcorn machine to her left. It seemed like whoever had taken the picture had lifted the phone from her before attacking.

Kenzi flipped back to the pictures of the three murdered women. None of them were Bo.

Dyson took the phone from her, and stared at the picture of Bo with her hand removed.

"I loved her," he said absently. "I loved her, and I didn't love her at the same time. It was just like she was another conquest, one that I kept going back to every time she cried for help. I thought I really did love her. I thought she was going to be my life mate. I was wrong."

Dyson looked up at Kenzi. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to say anything.

Kenzi blushed, took the phone back, and flipped through the pictures again.

"Would you kiss me if I said I love you?" Dyson asked.

The blush on Kenzi's face deepened, and faded away until her skin was fish pale.

"Dyson," she said, and showed him the phone. He looked down at it, and it was a picture of a blonde woman in dark glasses. She was staring right at the picture taker.

"What?"

"She was…"

"Are you Dyson Thornwood?" a dark haired waitress asked. She was holding a box with a red ribbon tied around it.

"Yes," he said.

She handed him the box. "This is for you."

"From who?"

"The pretty young blonde over…" she pointed to the table Kenzi had spotted earlier. "Huh, she was there just a minute ago."

"Thank you," Dyson said. he tipped the waitress for the delivery, then ripped the ribbon off the box.

Kenzi looked in and gasped.

There was a left ear in the box with three silver rings pierced through the cartilage, one a finger tip away from the others, lying on a small silver plate.

AN: Once again I almost forgot to post the new chapter. Somebody really needs to start reminding me when its Friday. Oh, and check out In the End, There was Love and The Out of Towner. If you like my story, you should really like those. Links are on my profile, favorite stories.


	12. I Ain't Been Droppin No Eaves

Chapter 11: I Ain't Been Droppin No Eaves

"Could I not have delivered a clearer message?" The blonde woman muttered to herself. She watched them sitting at the little metal table, the big strong Dyson still crying about his lost partner. It wasn't surprising. The fey shifter didn't cry about the loss of his fey slut, or the human sluts. No, he just picked another human slut, and he didn't even look past the fey slut to get to her.

She sat back in her chair, and fingered her pack of cigarettes. She wanted one, wanted one bad. They seemed to kill the hunger, at least for a little while. And, the human flesh she'd been eating wasn't enough.

God! The fey slut had been perfect. It was like a full meal at Christmas, one of those massive enough to make her sleep. And, she had slept. She slept for days. Well, it felt like days. Really it had only been twelve hours, and by the time she woke up, the hunger was back.

She'd wanted to eat the nigger fey, the one Dyson actually cried over. God, he would have tasted fantastic, just like the fey slut. But, she had needed the nigger fey. She needed him to deliver the box, and the finger. The finger was important. It should send Dyson down a deep well of remembrance.

God, the hunger!

She wanted to change, here in broad daylight. She wanted to change and tear Dyson apart, devour his flesh and drink his blood. But, that was the hunger talking. She didn't want to do that. She'd never do that. No, no, not to Dyson.

_Why won't they open the damn box?_

She sat back in her chair, pulled out a cigarette and sat it on the table. She stared at it. Then she pulled out her phone. It was an iPhone 5. _Before_, just _before_, she'd been enamored with technology, and back then she'd gotten an app to block her number. It was useful now. Even when all that mattered was the hunger.

Even when all that mattered was Dyson…

And, the hunger.

She punched Bo's number into the app, and pulled up her test message window and typed:

What are you waiting for? The Rapture?

The message sent, and two seconds later the two of them were up, and six feet away from the box. She almost laughed. It bubbled up inside her, climbing up her throat, and trying to force open her lips. The hunger stopped it.

The hunger made no room for joy.

Still they thought it was a bomb. That was laughable. What would a bomb do to a fey like Dyson. Nothing. It might splatter his little human slut all over the patio, but she would much rather do that herself. And, given time, she would.

She would.

A woman told them it was a text message tone when the phone beeped its reminder.

Finally, she was getting somewhere.

Her head started to itch and burn. It had been doing that since… she fingered the other box in her pocket. The one with a bright red ribbon around it. That box was important too.

But, still. The itch, the burn, it wanted to drive her mad. It wanted her to feed.

Silver.

She needed to feed to heal the wound. She needed to feed, to sleep.

Now was not the time. She picked up the cigarette, and set it to her lips. She set a flame to it and inhaled. The harsh smoke filled her lungs, and the need to feed, the need to change retreated. They didn't like the smoke. Something about the way the cigarette was made. Wolfs bane, maybe, if they put that in cigarettes nowadays. She didn't care how it worked. She just needed to clear her head. A moment to think.

They'd opened the box. The dark haired slut pulled out the phone looked at the text message, and set it aside.

"Really?" she muttered under her breath. She took a drag on the cigarette and burned her fingers. It was an instant of pain, long enough for her to drop the butt. She crushed it out with her boot, and looked at the two little patches of red on her fingers. They blistered up, popped, the dead skin fell away, pink flesh replaced it, it scarred, and then the scar faded.

Her head would do that soon, grow a whole new ear maybe. But, not until she fed. Not until she fed.

She looked back up, back up at the pair, right in time for the dark haired slut to lock eyes with her. They stared at one another for a single minute, a single fat minute that stretched into eternity.

Finally, they found the finger. But, the slut's wind was up now. She'd have to move. Find a new vantage point. She wanted Dyson to find her. But, not here. Not here. Things would get messy here.

"Miss," she said, calling a waitress over.

"Yes," the waitress cocked her head as she looked at the blonde woman. The waitress could tell something was wrong.

"Would you deliver this to that nervous looking man over there?" The blonde woman pulled the ribbon wrapped box out of her pocket, and pointed towards Dyson. "His name is Dyson Thornwood, and it's sort of an anniversary gift. I'm too nervous to deliver it myself."

The waitress looked back over her shoulder. She found Dyson as she felt the box pressed into her hand. "It looks like he's with someone, are you sure it's a good idea?"

"Don't worry about it," the blonde woman said. "It's a gift for her too." The blonde woman smiled. She watched a shudder travel through the waitress, an ancient shudder from the deepest part of her mind. The waitress didn't even notice it.

"Alright," she said looking back at the blonde woman.

The blonde woman watched the waitress leave. She had to deliver an order to the kitchen before she delivered the box. It was time for the blonde woman to make herself scarce.

She got up, and stuffed her hands into the deep pockets of her trench coat. In the pockets she felt them change, the horrendous pain of bones crunching and shifting, the infernal itching as she grew amber colored fur. The pain, itching, and the hunger were normal to her now, she didn't even flinch. She caught a little girl looking at her, at her pockets. Terror lit the little girl's face, and she looked up at the blonde woman. She smiled, just in time to show the little girl the shift of her mouth, and fangs. The little girl screamed.

Her parents looked around, confused, and all they saw was a woman with blonde hair and a trench coat walking back towards the kitchen.

She passed the waitress without noticing, and she made her way through the kitchen.

"You can't…" one of the cooks started to say. The hunger couldn't be denied any longer. Her paw/hand lashed out of her pocket and grabbed the man's jaw as he spoke. He mumbled something—was it a prayer—into her paw/hand, and pissed himself. She drug him with her.

No other employees caught sight of her and her lunch.

A security camera did.

She drug him out the back. He'd taken to screaming, she tightened her paw/hand and heard the satisfying crunch of his jaw. Tears filled his eyes, and his screams became an idiot half ramble. _Begging for his life_, she thought.

She kicked off her boots, her fee had already started to change. Her feet stretched, the toes became tipped in claws, and a single claw sprung from her heel. Glorious amber fur grew down her legs. She picked her boots up, and stuffed them into her pockets as best she could. Then she used her clawed feet and free paw/hand to carry her up to the roof. The cook's jaw almost came free. Almost.

Her ears started to change.

Her nose started to change.

She could smell it as the cooks sphincter let go, and hear his final shit as it splattered on the asphalt below.

She reached the roof, and heaved the cook over first. He rolled twice, and cried out from the pain and the blood loss. He started to scramble, crawling on his hands and knees. He tried garbled, useless, cries for help.

She smiled.

She hooked her claws over the lips of the building. Her feet moved, pulsed really, and she was in the air. She came down clean on the back of the cook. His spine snapped in a dozen places, but still he drew breath.

"Wait right here," she whispered through her changing mouth, the shift making her voice husky, and disturbingly sexual. "I want you alive."

She got off him, and began to strip, removing her coat, top, and bra in almost one motion. She slid her pants off, releasing the short little tail, and waggled her cute little ass for the cook. Once finished, she folded and stacked her clothes on top of her trench coat, she put the shoes on top, and tied the trench coat up around them, and pulled her phone out of the jacket's breast pocket. She walked to the edge of the roof, her transformation complete, and removed her glasses. She looked down at Dyson, and the human slut.

The waitress walked out of the building, and they still hadn't found the photos. They were fawning over her lovely letter.

"Read it and remember it, Dyson," she tried to say, it translated into a series of grunts and growls. Werewolves couldn't talk. So, she brought her cell phone up, and with very careful movements of her claws, she unlocked the phone, opened the app, and sent another message to Bo's phone:

Aren't we the sweet little love birds. But, hasn't the detective realized the black haired bitch is holding evidence.

She watched the human slut jump as she received the text. The werewolf smiled, more a grimace than any true look of pleasure.

The human slut was going to get her comeuppance. So was Dyson, in a way. But, the hunger couldn't be denied any longer.

The werewolf turned to the cook. His face trembled with a terror that should shake his entire body.

The morning light glinted off her yellowish-gold eyes like dull coins. The werewolf moved.

It became unspeakable.


	13. Tequila was Involved

Chapter 12: Tequila Was Involved

"It's weird being back home," Kenzi said. She pushed the door open all the way, and looked at the half restored living room. It was Bo's work, and it had been patchy, hard to tell when she was going to work on it. But, she told Kenzi 'it was good honest work, something you could take a step back from and smile at. Something that just made you feel good.'

Kenzi replied saying, 'you felt the same way when you reached level ninety on World of Warcraft.' Bo had rolled her eyes.

And, now, seeing this room half-finished, Kenzi felt tears rise to her eyes. She blinked them away, and sat her bag down on the side board she'd "gotten for free" a couple days after moving in with Bo. Kenzi looked at it for a moment, and felt Dyson's hand on her shoulder. She wanted to be strong, jerk away from the support the way Bo might have. She wasn't Bo.

Kenzi let Dyson pull her into his arms. She put her hands on his chest, buried her face in the same and let the tears come. The tears that refused to come the day before. The police had hope that Bo was still out there. The pictures were proof that there was none. Bo was gone. A victim of the werewolf Kenzi knew nothing about.

"Maybe we should have stayed at my place," Dyson said. He held her as he said it, and she heard the words rumble through him. She could smell his cologne, something cheap, actually, and picked up at a local supercent. But, she could smell deeper than that, the sweet, rich, woody scent of the wolf. It was nothing like… like that stench. She slid her arms down, and wrapped them around him. She tried to lock her fingers in the back, but couldn't quite manage it.

"No," she said, twisting her head and drying her tears with his shirt. "No, this is home. This is where Bo is. And…"

Dyson nodded. He let go of her, and walked across the room with her. Kenzi picked up a picture of Bo, one she'd taken and had framed, and walked to the coffee table. She sat the photo down, and directed Dyson to the couch.

Kenzi than found a couple of candles, an incense burner, and a twin set of nag champa incense sticks. She sat down on the couch, away from Dyson and set up the small alter.

"Voodoo?" Dyson asked. Kenzi shot him a death glare, her eyes still glassy.

"No," she said. "Buddhism, I think."She shook her head. "I don't know. I'm just doing what feels right. I've never… I've never lost anyone like Bo. I mean, my grandmother died and all, but I never lost someone I was really close too.

"And, Hale, gods, Hale."

Kenzi sat on the edge of the couch. A match trembled in her fingers, dancing like a flame as she tried to bring it to life. Dyson steadied her hand, and she felt his pulse, the movement of his heart and his power. She felt how sturdy, and stable it was.

"I know too well what it's like to lose a friend," Dyson said. He took the match from her hand, and the box. A second later the flame sprang forth. He held it to one candle.

"This is for Bo," he said. the candle wick ate the flame, and came to life, half of Bo's face lit up.

"This is for Hale," he lit the other candle, and the light came to life in Bo's eyes. She was smiling in the picture, smiling at them.

"And, this is for us," Dyson held the match to both sticks of incense and its heady aroma filled the air. He looked at Kenzi, and she looked back. She couldn't help but look back.

Kenzi saw _it_ in his eyes. The thing she'd longed for since the first time she saw him. There never had been a Team Dyson, only her love. And, now…

"Is this right?" Kenzi asked.

"I don't know," Dyson said. He looked away, and looked at the picture of Bo. His face was all hard lines, and if Kenzi touched it she knew she'd find his muscles in hard little knots.

"Before I got the call," Dyson said. He hitched a breath in, and let it out slow. It was a visual to the alignment of his thoughts. "Before I got the call, I needed to find Bo. I didn't need her sexually, or in my arms to protect her from the big bad wolf. I needed her so, so, so I could tell her something. I needed to tell her it was over, that she wasn't my life mate, and the love I gave up to the Norn had not been love for her."

Tears came to his eyes, but he didn't blink them away. He let them fall. He needed to let them fall, to piss away all the terrible thoughts that haunted his mind.

It startled Kenzi. This intensity, it brought desire to her, and it brought fear. This was the man she loved, and if she had to face the werewolf's claws for it, she would do it with a smile, and a six inch silver spike.

Dyson turned his head. He looked at Kenzi, and all the lines on his face softened. The intensity was still there, behind his eyes. And, it was quiet now. Directed only at her.

"I needed to tell Bo that it was over." Dyson said. "I needed to tell her…"

Kenzi dropped a finger on Dyson's lips. She looked at him, and she couldn't help but smile.

"I don't know if it's right or wrong," she said. "But, would you kiss me if I told you I loved you?"

Dyson smiled, and pulled Kenzi into his arms. He pressed his lips against hers, and he didn't come back up for air.

%***%

There was something else in the room with them. It wasn't malevolent, no, far from it. It was something intangible, almost like smoke, but it still had weight, one that settled over the room while the two were talking, and when they were kissing.

Christians would label that thing, with its weight in the room, a soul. And, one of paranormal affluence would go so far as to call it a ghost.

Whatever it was called, it was conscious and there in the room with them. It was jealous first, jealous of the young woman, but when it's substance changed, its senses did too. It could see feelings as waves of light, passing from one body to the other. It could see their love, and it felt… it felt happy for them.

It moved itself across the room, across to the couch, and ran a hand that wasn't there through the man's hair, one last time.

"Bo," a black man with a sing song voice said from behind her, and she felt solidified. She could feel the curls of Dyson's hair under her palm. She watched him lay Knezi down on the couch, and she felt like a voyeur.

Bo turned from them and found the black man. His name was Hale, she remembered. He was dressed to the nines and was standing by the kitchen door. Only it wasn't the kitchen door, not anymore. It was a wall of light, hiding whatever might be behind it from view.

She walked over to him, looked him up and down once and smiled. "You think it's a club in there."

Hale smiled back at her. "Gotta look good no matter what it is."

Bo smiled again, and she looked back at the two on the couch. She looked back at them and smiled wider than ever. Bo took one step, one small step, and the weight lifted from the room.

And, when she and Hale were gone, the candles went out, one after the other.

And, the weight was gone.

The two on the couch sensed it, but had no words for it. They merely made love, as a tribute to what had passed.

%***%

Unfortunately, ghosts weren't the only ones watching. The blonde woman, for she was a woman again, stood on top of a building across from Bo's home. A cigarette hung from her lips, and a high powered Japanese camera was held before her eyes. She'd lifted it a while ago form a city or two away. Not _before_ but after. And, the sad son of a bitch had been lunch.

Now she snapped photo after photo after photo. The cook sated the hunger in her for now, and her thoughts were clear. She could plan.

The human slut had just crossed the line. Not only was she on the list now, she was at the top of it.

She kept snapping pictures, unaware her memory card ran out of space, and an absent part of her mind wondered how much money she'd make if she sold the photos to hustler.

That was at the back, though. Hiding near the hunger.

"What'cha gonna do, little baby Sue," she sang. It came without any real thought, like almost everything she'd done recently. The only firm thought in her mind was Dyson. And, the human slut. She was going to get the little human slut, and get her good. And, maybe, just maybe, this little slut would help her get Dyson.

The blonde woman, the werewolf, she kept snapping away, and she started singing.

"What'cha gonna do, little baby Sue,

"What'cha gonna do when the wolf comes for you."


	14. Lots and Lots of Photos

Chapter 13: Lots and Lots of Photos

Dyson's ears were as good as his nose, and the sound of a boot crunching the gravel outside Bo's bedroom window was like a gunshot. Sex with a human, with Kenzi, was far different than with Bo. There was no sense of being drained, and unable to think, no feeling of a hangover. Instead, it was refreshing like drinking from a fresh spring in the high mountain. And, that one little sound brought him too. He was awake, and out of bed in a fraction of a second.

The chief had confiscated his Sig Sauer when he was put on "paid time off", but they hadn't take his Bulldog .44, and the heavy six-shooter was in his hand when he reached the window. Centuries of conflict had conditioned him, and his back was too the wall, his eyes scanning the outside world. There was no evidence of anyone. Nothing but the sound.

"Dyson?" Kenzi said, raising up out of bed. Her eyes were bleary as she looked across the room at him. They snapped to reality when she saw the gun, and pulled the sheet up over her bare breasts.

He waved a hand at her, a cautioning one that patted the air. She lowered her voice, and crouched down closer to the bed. Dyson used the gun barrel to open the curtain just a fraction more, and looked down the alley behind the building.

Nothing.

With swift motions, and half a second of exposure, Dyson was across to the other side of the window. Again he used the barrel to open the curtain, and got the same result.

A thump sounded from the front of the building. Kenzi almost screamed, grabbing at her mouth with both hands to stop the sound. Dyson reacted even faster, jerking his hand around, orienting his gun on the door to the living room. He thumbed the hammer back on the gun.

"Bo get the paper delivered here?" Dyson whispered, and Kenzi shook her head. Dyson nodded.

He moved across the room and into the living room. He twitched from side to side covering every corner of the room, and moved across the wall in case there was somebody in the kitchen.

There was no hole in the wall, though, and that's what he thought he might have found. And, if it was a bomb, the likelihood of it going off now… Well, that was up in the air. Anything could happen when it came to bombs.

Dyson didn't sense something like that, though, his gut didn't tell him it was a bomb, and he'd relied more on that since the Middle Ages than he ever had on, well, anything else in his life. He lowered the gun, and eased the hammer back to its typical position. He didn't set the gun down, though, as he walked to the door, and he tightened his grip when he pulled it open.

The street was clear, nobody in visual range and there was a box lying cockeyed on the sidewalk and the wall. One corner was dented, and when Dyson picked it up there was good weight to it. Probably good enough weight to it to make it's contact with the wall equal to the thump they heard from the bedroom.

A gasp set him on red alert, and he jerked around, cocking and aiming the gun. He held the package under one arm.

What he found was a little old lady who'd just stepped out of the apartment building down the street. Her hair was up in curlers, her cane (with the more stable four points of contact), and she was half bent over reaching for the newspaper.

Dyson's cheeks, both sets, reddened when he realized all he was wearing was a smile, and even that was missing. Dyson retracted the gun, easing the hammer in, and moving the box to cover himself.

"Um, hi," Dyson said. He started to inch towards the door. The old woman, recovered from her shock locked a disparaging look on Dyson.

"You should make yourself decent before you check the mail," she said. "you're lucky I don't call the cops."

"Uh," Dyson said. He reached the door, and tried to get to the door knob. It took a second to realize he'd either have to move his gun or the box to get a hold of the knob. He set the gun on the box.

"And, you shouldn't be brandishing weapons in public."

"Yes, ma'am," Dyson said, and without thinking he added: "I'll be sure to write myself a citation."

He twisted the knob before she could say anymore, and slipped into the building revealing as little as possible.

"I'll get your citation pad," Kenzi said the moment he closed the door. She was giggling as hard as she could, holding one hand over her stomach, and the other over her mouth. She'd put a silky pink robe on. Her nipples stood out against the material.

"You're cutting diamonds," Dyson said. He put the gun and the box down on the coffee table then went and put his pants on. He was back in the living room, and a throw pillow connected with his head.

"The hell?" Dyson said, catching the pillow before it hit the ground. Kenzi stared at him with icy eyes. Her cheeks were a bright red. And, her hands were crossed over her chest. Dyson laughed a little himself. Then he looked at the box, an envelope taped to the outside of the box. His name was writte on it in very familiar handwriting. Kenzi found it at the same time, and the playful mood evaporated like it was hit by a Martian heat ray.

"Oh, gods," Kenzi said.

Dyson nodded.

He walked over and pulled the card from the box tape and all, and unfolded it.

Dyson and slut.

Since you're both too dense to look through a phone for evidence in the picture folder, I figured I'd give you a hand. Inside are a number of pictures I've taken over the last month or so.

And, dear Dyson, I'm sure you'll find many of these faces familiar.

Sincerely,

Your Little Angel of Death

PS: There are some shots in there you might consider selling to Hustler. I know I did.

Dyson's cheeks reddened, and when he showed the note to Kenzi hers did too. She looked at the window, and Dyson could tell what she was thinking. He too felt violated. That didn't stop him from splitting the tape on the box and starting to go through the pictures.

There were thousands, and the faces in the photos, what was left of them were familiar. Some of them were from ten years ago. A shudder travelled up Dyson's spine. Whoever this was, this bat shit insane werewolf, they had been stalking him for the last decade, and they'd only recently come into the power to fulfill their insane desires.

They didn't talk for twelve hours, all they did was go through the photos, and connect them to the pictures of buildings, the places (they'd decided by a strange form of telepathy) where these horrible crimes had happened.

Dyson had made the decision when he found out Kenzi was in danger, but it was now an absolute certainty. A hunting party would have to be put together. The werewolf had to be found, it had to be killed. And, soon.

"Dyson," Kenzi said, and her voice startled him. Any sound would have startled him.

"What?" Dyson said, more sharply than he should have. He shook his head. "Sorry, what is it?"

Kenzi paused, looking at him, and sighed. "This one doesn't match any of the murdered pictures. It's…"

Dyson took the photo she held out to him, and she was right. It was a perfectly normal house in a pleasant neighborhood. Most of the victims had been dragged to abandoned buildings, attacked on rooftops, or torn apart in single person apartments. None of them had happened in the suburbs. But, this house.

This house…

"I know this house," Dyson said. He was on his feet and strapping on his gunbelt before Kenzi could process.

"What about it?" Kenzi said.

"I know that house," Dyson said. "The people that lived there, I've known them. I've known them for years."

"Who are they?"

"People I've tried to forget."


	15. Getting A Head in Life

Chapter 14: Getting Ahead in Life

The house stood before them, a two story brick affair with six gables. The lawn was neat and well maintained with a mulch bed up close to the house and running the width of the building, save for the small stoop. Rose bushes grew there, in the summer, and ivy, spreading its vines up the corners of the building. Two neatly trimmed hedges stood watch on either side of the stoop.

Dyson looked up the flagstone path, up the stoop, and right at the double French doors. They would swing open into a little lobby. To the left would be a sitting room with a nice fireplace, which would have a fire going at this time of year, though the smell of burning wood, nor a pencil line of smoke rising into the sky. To the right of the little lobby would be the stairs, and a door leading into the dining room. Down the hall by the stairs there would be a den on the left and a large well stocked kitchen on the right. A door on the other side of the kitchen would lead take you into a two car garage, or you could take a right up the stairs and fid yourself in a work out/ play room above the garage.

Dyson blinked, and reality loomed before him. It was there, all right there standing behind those brick walls. A different life it had been, a different person he had been, but it was here, an unchanging monument to time.

Jessa Mae McCoy.

Dyson shuddered at the name.

"What is it?" Kenzi asked. She touched him lightly on the arm, and he tensed, almost jerked away, almost.

"Memories," Dyson said.

He left it at that and started up the path. He found his strides were too long, and he was on the porch too fast. It couldn't be helped. His hand, a fist, was ready to knock on the door when he caught sight of the mailbox. It was stuffed full, and there were four days worth of newspapers on the floor. He looked down, dumbfounded.

Maybe things had changed for the worse.

Dyson pushed aside the memory of this place, and made himself see it for what it really was. He opened his eyes again, and found four claw marks at head height on the door. They weren't slash marks, but ones applied by pressure. And, they went no further, no divots in the concrete of the stoop caused by the class of the feet. Whatever the werewolf had been doing, it had changed back before stepping out of the house.

He tried the knob, and it swung open with no effort. And, Hell had visited this house. Dyson stepped in. The destruction landed like a blow to his sternum. The walls were covered in claw marks, holes had been torn revealing the inner workings of the home, and the damage done to that. (Dyson was surprised the house hadn't burned down from the pain inflicted on the electrical system.) And the sitting room was visible from the little lobby with the addition of a new window. A body shaped window.

The fireplace drew his attention first, the smell of ashes and plastic. It was full, and Dyson guessed, from the glut that filled the house last time he saw it, the ashes were the remains of six decades worth of photos.

"I need to see what the rest of the house looks like," Dyson said turning to look at Kenzi. She'd just stepped inside the building. She looked cautious, not afraid, but definitely cautious. She could smell the overpowering stench of the werewolf, he didn't need to ask to know that. "I want you to stay here. The wolf might still be in the house."

Kenzi nodded. Dyson didn't think about who he was talking too. Instead, he started upstairs. That would be where the proof was. In Jessa Mae's room.

%***%

Kenzi watched as Dyson went up stairs. She meant to listen to what he said, but couldn't help it, not when he turned the corner and disappeared down the hallway. She started her own investigation, first by moving into the sitting room.

Like the rest of the house, she supposed, the room was a mess. Classic Victorian armchairs or what not had been turned over, the legs knocked off, and the stuffing torn out in great claw shaped tufts. The coffee table was split in half, and the couch was only short its cushions. There had been a number of plants and shelves in the room, but they were twisted destroyed messes, with glass and porcelain knick-knacks strewn across the hardwood floors. There was a rug in the center of the room. It was untouched. She wasn't certain, but it didn't look like there was a single strand out of place.

"That's not right," Kenzi muttered to herself, and looked up into one corner. A grandfather clock stood untouched by the chaos. And, the windows, no cracks, no smudges, no sign of contact whatsoever. She'd seen too many bar fights and too many of Bo's fights to know that windows didn't often survive a fight. The glass was to tempting to use as a weapon.

Kenzi shook her head

She spent a moment poking through the pile of ash in the fireplace. The fire might have consumed years worth of photos, but it's possible that not all the pictures were destroyed.

Her intuition was rewarded. With almost the first poke a corner fell free. The picture was blackened around the edges, but it was a color print, and enough of the photo was left to show a pretty blonde girl, a little on the chunky side, with familiar looking eyes.

%***%

Dyson stopped at the door farthest from the stairs. He didn't look into any of the other bedrooms. His gut told him this was the important room. This had been Jessa Mae's room after all. He reached out with one hand, didn't notice the tremble it had obtained, and closed around the cool metal door knob. He tried to use his senses to determine who had last used the door, but the stench of the werewolf was truly overpowering up here, and he didn't have the powers of a touch-know.

Instead he twisted the knob, and swung the door open.

It was pink Hell inside.

Chills went down his spine.

The room was untouched, minus any pictures that might have been present previously. The walls were pink, the bed spread was pink, the curtains, it was a theme that ran on throughout the room, just like the sorority house Kenzi had infiltrated just after they'd met. The dresser, the small vanity/desk, and the bed stand were white. Not a great way to offset the glut of pastel, but the way one would expect a teenager or little girl to accessorize.

Dyson stepped into the room, and started to poke around, looking through piles of paper on the desk and old empty photo albums. There was a locked diary lying on the bed, but a single glance told Dyson the first half of the pages had been torn from the personal volume.

There was nothing. Nothing to indicate it was still Jessa Mae's room, and nothing besides the strength of the smell to indicate the werewolf had been here, had, perhaps, lived here.

Dyson started to leave the room, with disappointment running down his throat like a heavy paste. He caught something out of the corner of his eye. The dresser, it was one of those with a wardrobe style top, and one of the doors was barely open, like the catch inside it hadn't quite locked all the way.

Dyson moved towards it.

%***%

Kenzi's exploration of the house, with the photo corner tucked in her hip pocket, had moved to the kitchen. The den had been destroyed in the same careful fashion with the same peculiarities that the sitting room had. Again the windows were untouched, the fireplace, opposite the one in the sitting room, was full of ashes and melted plastic, and there was a set of sliding glass doors back here, leading out onto a party-sized back porch, in pristine condition.

The suspicion had been growing in her, thickening like cold gravy, entail she was certain. Whatever happened here had been staged. The werewolf wanted it to look like a titanic fight had taken place. But, it was careful too, of the heirlooms the family might have, and the things that might have otherwise been important to the werewolf. The photos had been destroyed for one reason and one reason only. The werewolf lived here, or had lived here until something disrupted it.

Bo.

The thought was there, but it was unformed, child-like. Bo had been here, this might have even been where Bo's case had started. The fact was already proven that Bo had found the werewolf. Kenzi let her thoughts drift as she moved into the kitchen.

The destruction was in here too, calculated. The table destroyed, cabinets sheared by claws and doors torn off. And, the sink, one of the metal _Kholer_ brands, had been torn out and thrown across the room.

But, what struck Kenzi the most, and what might as well have confirmed her theory, was the lack of extremely typical items in the room.

There was no food.

A shudder passed over Kenzi, one of growing horror, and she thought about the little blonde girl with familiar eyes. Bo had taken a picture of a blonde woman wearing blacked out sunglasses. And, the woman at the cafe had been blonde and wearing those same sunglasses.

Was the blonde woman, the little girl in the picture, the werewolf?

Kenzi wanted to share her catch with Dyson, and she started towards the stairs.

But...

There was something in the air. Something just as putrid as the stench of the werewolf. And, it was coming from a door in the back corner of the kitchen. The door, leading to the pantry or basement maybe, was ajar.

Kenzi felt a shudder, and another chill race down her spine, and like the bimbo in bad horror movies, she walked right to the door and laid her hand on the knob.

%***%

Dyson took one finger and pulled back on the wardrobe door. The latch came completely free, and the door swung open. His theory was confirmed, and, had he known Kenzi's train of thought, he'd have confirmed hers too. Dyson sighed.

Jessa Mae McCoy who became Jessa Mae Danforth for a short time, and almost became Jessa Mae Thornwood was the werewolf.

The alter spread out before him in the wardrobe was dedicated to him. Pictures filled every surface, newspaper clippings, private investigator shots, and photos of a time long past, all of them were of him. The older ones, two decades old, were pictures of him and Jessa Mae. She had long gorgeous blonde hair shot through with streaks of red, back in those days. Her left ear was pierced with Dyson's mark, three silver bands one a finger tip away from the other two, just like the ear he'd received on a silver platter.

The newer pictures, the clippings and PI photos, were only ten years old, right back to the time he'd moved back into the city. And, there were a number of clippings where Jessa Mae had added herself into the photos, either via Photoshop or paper clips and tape.

It was sad. And, that's all he felt for Jessa Mae anymore. Sadness and pity. Once he thought he'd loved her, once he thought she was going to be his life mate. He'd marked her, told her everything, intended to marry her. But, life was cruel. His responsibilities and his oath to Trick tore him away from her.

When he came back, he'd heard she married, thought she'd moved on with her life, and that coming back into her life would only hurt her more.

Dyson sighed. He leaned against the alter with his head in his hands. Tears wanted to come, but he would not let them. He'd driven her to this, unknowingly. He'd made her seek out one who carried the curse and gift of the Norn, and now she had the power to take her vengeance out on him.

He looked back up at the altar, at a blown up eight-by-ten shot in the middle of the alter, and Kenzi's scream cut through him like a knife.

%***%

Kenzi pushed the door open a tad farther and peered behind it. A flight of stairs descended down into the gloom. Her hand worked for the light switch, moving along the wall in groping motions. She found one, and, to her utter surprise, the light came on.

From what she could see at the top of the steps the basement was clean, with a concrete floor, and supple pine serving as the medium for the stairs and the visible wood paneling.

She started down the stairs, and not a single one creaked beneath her feet, and more of the basement that was revealed in the process looked free of destruction.

But...

There's always a 'but' isn't there?

Kenzi found the horror she expected.

In the corner of the room, farthest from the stairs, and invisible to someone looking in from the outside door window, was an old lady, her body stapled to the wall with twisted steel pipes. Her stomach was gouged out, and her legs missing below the hips. A shocked expression was frozen on her face by rigor mortis. Kenzi could only guess the old woman was the werewolf's grandmother, and she hadn't expected to be one of the werewolf's meals.

That wasn't even the most grisly part of the unfolding picture.

There was a little wheeled cart rolled up in front of the murder, and a head, with long black hair had been placed upon it, oriented so it could look right at the scene of the crime. Kenzi shuddered, she knew who that head belonged too. An envelope lay on the cart behind the head with Dyson's name scribbled on it. Naturally, the hand writing was familiar, and burned into Kenzi's memory by now.

She ignored it, she had to confirm her knowledge, she had too look under the sheet as the cerebellum, the home location of man's morbid curiosity, pushed her towards it. It drove blonde bimbos up flights of stairs, into dark room where the murderer waited, and drove Kenzi around that rolling stand.

Kenzi took one look at the head, Bo's head, and this time there was no stopping the scream which spilled out of her lungs.

%***%

Dyson ran, his legs taking him down the hall, past bedrooms that were pristine and picture free, as Jessa Mae's room, and he leapt the banister as soon as it was in sight. He landed in a crouch, dropping one hand to the glass covered floor and cut his palm open. His mind overrided the pain. His eyes flicked around. The lobby was empty, the sitting room was empty. She hadn't listened to him.

He was up and going again, around the corner that led to the den and kitchen. He skimmed both, with his eyes fixing on the open basement door. Dyson drew his gun as he ran, though without silver bullets it was useless against a werewolf, and forced his fangs out in place of his teeth.

Like the banister, he skipped the stairs entirely, jumping at an angle that would put him all the way down. Again he hit in a crouch, used his bloody hand to keep from hitting the wall, and turned. There was only Kenzi, standing between a mangled old woman, and a head minus its body.

Like Kenzi, he knew whose head it was.

"Dyson," Kenzi said, her eyes wide and face pale as the grave. Tears hid in the corners, but weren't ready to break rank.

"I told you to stay put," Dyson said, with no malice in his voice. He holstered the Bulldog, and walked across to where Kenzi stood. He saw the envelope on the back of the rolling stand. He ignored it the same as Kenzi. Dyson took her in his arms, held her, and paused before looking at the head.

He knew why Kenzi screamed when he saw it. Three claw marks were drawn along Bo's face, opening her skin to the bone. And, her eyes were missing. And, her nose. Both of which were eaten, Dyson had no doubt.

"It's okay," Dyson said, stroking Kenzi's silk smooth hair. "Her pain is over. She'd moved on across the river."

Kenzi's tears broke free as he held her, and rocked her, and that's all he did for hours.

%***%

Dyson,

She made me do it. Your fae slut made me do this. I destroyed my home. I killed the woman who was closest to me. It was all because of her. Because, she came poking around.

She found me, if you can't guess, and I suppose that was better than me hunting her down. And, my hunger, my goddamn unending hunger, took her. She's the best meal I've had since…_after._

And, now I've damned her. Made it so she will see what she made me do, the very fucking horror she put me through. She will see it for all eternity, and I've blinded her to anything else.

Keep your little human slut close, Dyson. I'm in a very bad mood, and I will come to take her when you least expect it. And, I will make her suffer a fate worse than death.

Then it will be you and me. We can settle our differences, and be together through eternity.

Sincerely,

Your Little Angel of Death

Dyson folded the piece of parchment closed. They were back at Bo's and Kenzi was upstairs taking a long hot bath. Said she needed to wash the pain of the day away.

It was an hour before dawn.

"What have you done, Jessa Mae?" Dyson said to no one in particular. "What have you done?"


	16. Kenzi Freaks

Chapter 15: Kenzi Freaks

Kenzi's eyes climbed the wall, crawling over every detail, without actually seeing any of it. She was still in the basement, still looking at Bo's head and the old woman hanging from the wall. Kenzi hadn't seen the other crime scenes, and the photos had been cold and impersonal. She could close the file folders, put the album up, or close the book, anything to get rid of the images. But, memories, it took years to close that book, and Kenzi wasn't sure she had that kind of time left.

She didn't need to read the letter to know she was next on the monster's list. She sank deeper into the hot water, almost to the point where her face was submerged. And, Kenzi thought as she lay there. She thought of how easy it would be for her to escape the situation. She didn't mean the bus or the subway. Not even the thumb. No, the answer Kenzi saw was sitting on the sink edge.

Her body worked like an accordion as she got up out of the water. Her fingers and hair dripped tiny droplets of water on the bathroom rug. In Kenzi's mind those droplets were already red. She grabbed the small square package of straight razors and dipped her hand into her bathroom bag. She pulled out a small plastic bag, with a single oblong shape in it. It had been years since she'd done pills, but Vicodin kept its potency for years, and the amount of time between then and now had killed her tolerance to the medication. This one little pill would be enough to keep her high and pain free as her life bled away.

She sank back into the water, holding the pill in one hand, and the razor's in the other. Kenzi had been in a lot of low places in her, but this is the first time she'd considered _this _solution. She thumbed one of the razors out of the package. She pushed too hard, and there was a plunk as it landed in the water.

"Damnit," Kenzi said. Being careful not to cut herself (ha, wasn't that a laugh) she pulled the blade up out of the water.

The surface didn't have the reflective quality of a well kept blade. It didn't show her face, how the eyes seemed to have hollowed out, and how the skin had paled to the grey tones of death. She didn't know how much the look on her face would hurt Dyson, nor could she see how her death would destroy Dyson.

Dyson loved her, that she knew, and she loved him. The Wolf, the werewolf, a creature she only knew about from movies and bad comics. It was hunting down all who had loved Dyson, had they only loved Dyson for a night, or a period of years. And, now she loved Dyson. Now the werewolf's sights were lined up with her face. Earlier, before the old woman, Kenzi had been willing to take the werewolf head on. But, now, she saw what the monster would do to her. Now, it wasn't just a picture lying on the coffee table.

_Dyson will protect you, _her inner voice said, that instinct for survival had been a guiding light throughout her entire life. It was working even now as it was her own hand was the one bringing her doom.

_If you do this, Dyson will hate you,_ the voice kept going. _You'll only be doing the werewolf's job for it._

Kenzi popped the Vicodin, dry swallowed it, and leaned back in the tub. She rested her head on the curvature, and looked up at the ceiling, not really seeing it. Still, she saw the old woman up there, her body torn totally apart as if it were a piece of chicken butchered for dinner. And, she couldn't forget Bo's head, sitting unevenly on a neck that had been torn instead of cut. Claws had stolen her beauty, and a monster took her eyes. She didn't want to look like that. She didn't want to die like that.

She looked at the razor blade. Just a few more minutes, just long enough for the Vicodin to kick in.

Her instincts were screaming in her head. It would take her voice if it could, scream out a warning to Dyson. Get him to save her from herself.

The haze of the Vicodin high covered her mind. Her body was numb to everything except the warmth of the water. She raised the razor blade, and placed its deadly edge against her wrist. The blade bit in, cutting through skin, muscle, artery, and all the way down to the bone. She drew on the razor and her arm opened up like a zippered bag.

Kenzi looked at the inner workings of her arm. She hoped she had the strength left in it to do the same to the other. She moved the razor and drew another line up her arm. She leaned back in the water, already it was turning pink.

"Dyson," Kenzi said as the blackness came. She wanted to say I love you, but the effort died on her lips.

Dyson heard his name called with the weakest of voices. He'd heard the tone and weakness before. Not here, but on a hundred different battlefields, and crime scenes. It was the voice of someone dying. The voice of those letting go instead of asking for help.

"Kenzi." The name fell from Dyson's lips as he rounded the corner and bounded up the stairs. The bathroom door was locked, and the hole in the wall wasn't big enough for him to fit through. So, he picked the lock the way any good police officer does. Dyson slammed his heel into the space right beside the doorknob. He misjudged the amount of force it would take, the building was old and Bo had done no renovation to it. So, he stumbled into the bathroom, but, stumbling got him where he wanted to go.

Kenzi lay in the tub, much to still for Dyson's liking. Her arms were cut into matching capital Ts. He could smell the sweetness of her blood as it mixed with water and soap. Her skin had lost almost all color. Dyson looked at her face.

"Gods," he said and done to the tub, pulling Kenzi up out of the water and into his arms. "What have you done? God's above what have you done?"

Dyson was back downstairs, he'd wrapped two towels around her arms, fastening them with strips of the shower curtain. He'd tied tourniquets above her elbows. How much blood has she lost? Was her heart still beating? Was she even breathing? His mind was too frantic to answer any of those questions. He couldn't slow down long enough to think, he paced back and forth in front of the living room couch, but he did have the presence of mind to pull out his phone.

"Kenzi's hurt," Dyson said as soon as Lauren picked up the phone.

"What?" Lauren said, her voice was still thick with sleep. Dyson prayed that she was able to wake up fast.

"We found the wolf den," Dyson said, his mind not filtering out the necessary information.

"Oh my God," Lauren said. "Why didn't you call me sooner?"

In the Fae world, the word werewolf, and anything relating to it, was stronger than a cup of coffee.

"Was she bitten or scratched?" Lauren asked. Dyson could hear her zipping up her pants in the background. She was probably digging blouse out of the dirty laundry. And, she would be sans bra when he saw her.

"Neither," Dyson said, "she slit her wrists."

The next thing Dyson heard was Lauren's phone slamming into the ground. He prayed the line stayed open, and held that prayer until Lauren was back on the other end.

"Have you got…"

"I've got bandages on her arms, tied tight, and a tourniquet above each elbow," Dyson said.

His breath was becoming heavy, his pacing frantic, and his mind on a whole new level existence. Kenzi lay on the couch, like she was bleeding or not.

"Is her heart still beating?" Lauren asked.

"I don't know," Dyson said.

"Then check!" Lauren screamed into her cell. It knocked some sense into Dyson. He knelt beside Kenzi, and pressed two fingers to her throat. A pulse was there, but it was faint, little more than thirty beats per minute. He licked one finger, and held it over her lips. There was the tiniest whisper of breath.

"She has a pulse," Dyson said. "And, she's still breathing."

"Good. She's going into shock, wrap her up in a blanket, and meet me at The Ash's compound." Lauren said.

"Isn't it dangerous to move her?"

"Yes," Lauren said. "But, unless Bo has two to four pints of type AB negative blood, then there's not going to be much help for her."

"Right," Dyson said. He got a blanket from the closet, spread it out with one flip of his wrist and laid it over Kenzi's still naked form. "I'm on my way."

Dyson stuffed his phone back into his pocket, and pulled Kenzi up into his arms. "I lost Bo," he said to her, with more anger in his voice than he wanted. "I've lost so many to this damn Wolf. I'm not going to lose you too."

He shouldered the door open, and ran for his car. Dawn was coming. For one insane second, Dyson wondered if this would be Kenzi's last dawn. He wasn't aware of it, but he made a pact, a blood pact with Jessa Mae McCoy, the werewolf. He was going to see her dead. And, if it had to be, he would do it himself.


	17. The Appeal

Chapter 16: The Appeal

Dyson sat with his back to the wall staring at Kenzi's hospital bed. He watched the heart rate monitor and heard its steady ticks as Kenzi's heart kept beating. Her chest rose and fell. If he hadn't heard her, if he had been asleep or any number of things, Kenzi wouldn't be breathing now. And, with the stench of the werewolf permeating the air around them (even here in the depths of the Light Fae's citadel) he could only take a guess at how long it would have been before he smelled her blood.

He shook his head. He leaned forward. He wanted to cry, wanted to let it all come rolling out, but he was an alpha, he couldn't afford to show weakness whether he had a pack or not. He should have…

"You couldn't have predicted this," Lauren said. She'd stepped through the small curtained off area, and leaned against the wall. Her hands were stuck in her pockets, one of them, no doubt, holding a tranquilizer for him to take. Her hair was a mess, and for once, Dyson didn't feel the slightest amount of dislike looking at her. He was worn thin. Incredibly thin.

"I should have," Dyson said. He blinked, and felt the thin line of one salty sweet tear run down his cheek. "After what we saw at that house I should have been able to predict this. I mean, really"—he shook his head, dropped it into his hands, and pulled his hair. The pain was welcome.—"If you were faced with two deaths, what would you do? Would you take the one that turns you into a blood filled human flavored pastry, or death by your own hand? I would take death by my own hand any day of the week. I shouldn't have let her out of my sight."

"Dyson," Lauren said. She walked over to where Dyson sat and dropped a comforting hand on his shoulder. He thought of jerking away, but didn't in the end. Even Alpha wolves need support from time to time. "This is Kenzi we're talking about. She's going to do whatever she damn well pleases no matter who she's around. The only thing we can do is react. And, we reacted right on time with this."

Lauren pointed at Kenzi, hooked up to all those wires, reading her pulse, the oxygen content in her blood, her brain waves, and every other thing that could be measured by technology.

"Don't dwell on the 'what ifs'," Lauren said. "She doesn't need that right now."

"I'm the reason she's there," Dyson said, and now he couldn't stop the tears. "I'm the reason she tried to kill herself, and I'm the reason every other woman has been killed. Me. Me and my inability to keep my dick in my pants." He rubbed at his eyes, tried to turn them like faucets that controlled the tears. "I knew the werewolf. I loved the person behind the curse, and I drove her to this. All because I thought staying out of her life would be the best thing I could do.

"I think it's time you shared what you found out," the voice was thick and low, one of only two voices that Dyson listened too when it came to commands. Dyson looked up, and found The Ash. A black man, tall with a thick build and a hair cut that should have died in the eighties.

Dyson didn't speak, immediately, and knew The Ash did not expect him too. Instead, The Ash walked over to Kenzi and watched her for a minute. His eyes were caring one moment, and icy the next. Dyson could see all of this, but when The Ash brushed a stray hair back behind Kenzi's ear, the wolf in Dyson lunged. Resisting the urge was one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

"I'm starting to wonder if this girl is human or not," The Ash said. "She's partnered to the succubus, and stuck her nose in a number of places it shouldn't be, yet still she survives. Djieien, Basilisk poisoning, the headless hunters, body jumpers, she's stood beside the succubus through it all, and I'm sure she'd have stood beside the succubus through many more. But, now the succubus is gone, and this little human almost went with her. Even when she is her own worst enemy, she lives to fight another day. You chose well when you picked her as your mate."

The Ash turned to look back at Dyson. His eyes weren't quite cold, but they weren't warm either. They weren't kind. They were practical. And, Dyson feared that he might find inside them if he dug deep enough.

"Now," The Ash said. "You were going to tell me about the werewolf, who it is, why it's here, and what if anything, we can do to make the damn thing leave."

"Twenty years ago," Dyson said. His eyes never left The Ash's, not once during the entire telling

The Ash stood beside Kenzi's bed throughout the whole story. He watched Dyson, and he watched the rise and fall of Kenzi's chest. Then he went back to looking at Dyson, his eyes filled with judgment as he heard the end of the tale. The part about the house, and Nancy McCoy, the mother of the werewolf.

"Dyson Thornwood," The Ash said. "You have brought this plague down upon us, you have seen to the death of many humans, and two Light Fae; your lover and your partner. For this the punishment should be death."

Dyson's jaw unhinged. He stared up at The Ash, and clenched his hands into tight fists. And hatred, hatred of The Ash, this ignorant bastard, who knew nothing of Dyson's plight.

"I committed no crime," Dyson said. He stood up and stepped right up to The Ash. At this angle Dyson was looking down at The Ash. "I gave my heart to a woman, and was forced to leave her. I thought it best not to put myself back in her life. I felt I would cause her harm."

"Your decisions have caused her harm," The Ash said. "I will have a team sent over to comb the house, and to clean up the wolf's mess. Too much of this has made it into the human media."

"I call the right of Hrodvitnisson," Dyson said. "The monster must be put down. I know who it is, and where it is. I can see it destroyed. But, I can't do it by myself."

"You mean to chase the moon," The Ash said, and shook his head. "In a county with a wolf shifter as Ash, then perhaps the old rights of the Wolfen Council might have some meaning. But, I am not a wolf shifter, Dyson. I am not bound by the Wolfen Council's laws. And, there is no chance that I will condone this hunt."

"Something has to be done!" Dyson said, unable to control the level of his voice. The wolf in him wanted to shift, it wanted to tear The Ash from limb from limb, and throw them in the fire so he burns as a tree would.

"That, Dyson Thornwood," The Ash said. "Is why I will not sentence you to death. You may claim your right of Hrodvitnisson, but you will not receive help from the Light Fae. You brought this creature upon us, and you will pay for that. Dyson Thornwood, your punishment shall be hunting down and destroying this werewolf."

With that The Ash spun on his heel back to Kenzi, and he caressed her cheek. Dyson almost let the wolf do as it wished.

"Survive this, little one," The Ash crooned. "Maybe there is something more for you to do in this life. Maybe."

Dyson was torn as he watched The Ash leave. He had to stay here to protect Kenzi, but the werewolf had to pay.

Dyson took a walk outside, he wanted a cigarette, but hadn't had one in what felt like centuries. In a way he'd been condemned to die. Hunting down and killing Jessa Mae, killing the monster inside of her, and her at the same time. It was a task too big for one Fae to handle. The Ash had sentenced him to die.

He dropped down onto his haunches, and stared at a half smoked cigarette someone had casually pitched into the bushes. There was a phone in his pocket, Bo's phone. It had more numbers in it than his phone had. And, these numbers could cross lines that he never could.

The phone was out of his pocket and in his hand, the cigarette jumped up off the pavement and stuck between his lips. He pulled out a lighter and fed the tip of the cancer stick to the flame. He coughed once as his lungs reacquainted themselves with the smoke.

On the phone the contacts page was open. He scrolled down until he saw the name Evony with The Morrigan in parenthesis. His finger called up that contact, and he pressedthe call button. The phone rang, he didn't think she would pick up.

"Bo, honey, I thought you were dead," Evony's perpetually chipper voice said into the other end.

"She is," Dyson said.

"Oh the wolf," Evony said. "Is the poor little lapdog looking for a new leg to hump?"

"I've got information," Dyson said. "I've heard you've lost several Fae on your side of the line. Near the old theater."

"How do you know that?" The chipper mocking voice had been replaced. Evony was deadly serious. Dyson smiled.

"I can tell you everything you need to know about the werewolf. I can tell you who it is, where it is, and how to kill it."

"I'm listening," The Morrigan said. Dyson began his story for the second time. When he finished, he walked to a convenience store half a block down and bought a pack of cigarettes. He smoked all of them before he got back to the compound.

Dyson looked up into the sky, into the bright morning light, and wondered how it was possible to make a deal with the devil so early in the morning.


	18. A Hunting We Will Go

Chapter 17: A Hunting We Will Go

A dozen berserkers, half a dozen Red Caps, and three shifters, one of them a wolf. Then there was the Morrigan. She shook her head and stared at the group in front of her. All of them were outfitted in swat team riot gear. Evony didn't know whether the armor would do any good for her crew. That wasn't exactly a problem either. The berserkers and the Red Caps were cannon fodder. She expected them to die. But, they would do plenty of damage to the wolf for the shifters to finish the job.

Evony was going along herself, but she was merely moral support, morale boost, or something, that would inspire confidence in her warriors. She didn't plan on breaking a single fingernail during this mission.

"The lap dog was very specific on this," Evony said turning to her nearest lieutenant, a snake shifter named Elsie. "He told me the woman would be hidden in the bottom of the theater. Hell, he called it. She's a blonde in her late forties, and by the lap dog's calculations she should be approaching the complete destabilization of her sanity."

Elsie cocked an eyebrow at Evony. The Morrigan sighed, deciding next time she needed a war party she'd recruit college grads.

"The bitch is crazy," Evony said.

"Oh," Elsie said.

"Now, without any thought her tactics will be very simple, little more than a frontal assault. There shouldn't be a need to guard the rear, but incase the lap dog is wrong we'll put the berserkers out front, and the Red Caps behind while we move in the center of the group."

"Yes ma'am," Elsie said. "What about weapon and ammo distribution? Who gets the silver?"

"We do," Evony said, her voice barely above whisper. "Secondary weapons a nine shot clip with forty-five caliber rounds. Primary weapons will be M16s."

Elsie nodded, and started to head towards the weapons cache in the small private garage. Evony stopped her with a simple touch on her shoulder.

"Tell them all the rounds are silver."

The snake shifter looked at Evony with undisguised horror. Evony smiled, and that smile, it spoke volumes. The snake shifter swallowed hard, and nodded.

"Yes ma'am," she said. She left, and Evony let her go."

"You like hearing that, doncha?" The voice was caught somewhere between high and low, and it was full of malefic joy. The sound alone suggested that it was the embodiment of all tricksters, as if Loki had descended from his prison in Nifleheim.

"Vex," Evony said. She turned on her heel and found short pale man dressed in another of his bondage outfits. He disgusted her, in every way he disgusted her. She couldn't even stand to be in the same county as Vex. But, he was a necessary evil, and a popular one at that.

"I thought you refused to go on this wild goose chase?" Evony said. She turned back to the hood of the SUV, the blueprints for the theater were laid out.

"Oh," Vex said, he moved around and leaned against the hood of the SUV with one ass cheek hanging out of his pants. Evony's stomach rolled. "I'm not here to go on your goose hunt. I'm here to ask you what flowers you want at your memorial. Since I'll be the next Morrigan, I thought I'd get an early enough start on that."

"So confident are you?" Evony said, her voice was chipper, but short and cold as well. She was hungry, and she could feel the waves of talent pouring out of Vex. She hated to admit it, but he would be the next Morrigan, should she die on this mission (the thought of that was impossible to place in her mind), or if she died at his hand when he consolidated his allies and moved against her.

"Confident enough to know the Light Fae wolf is lying," Vex said. "Whatever line he fed you, whether it be about the long lost love or the damned theater where it's supposed to live. I've been in that theater, thought about turning it into a club, there's nothing there but dust and cobwebs. The most threatening thing I've seen there are termites eating away the boards in the stairs."

"Why are you trying to stop me?" Evony said, turning her eyes on Vex. Her eyebrows had descended into a v-shape, and all her mouth was a firm thin line. "We've had three deaths in that area, each of them confirmed werewolf kills. And, the lap dog has no reason to lie. His human bitch is about to be the next one on the wolf's hit list. Finding and killing the wolf would be doing him a favor. And, we'll have a scary looking head to hang before the doors to our compound. Something nice to remind The Ash of who has the most balls in this county."

"That was a nice speech," Vex said. "Very…um…very motivating. Almost makes me want to take up arms and go with you."

"You'd be welcome," Evony said with a cold calculating smile. "I could put you out front with the berserkers, and since there's nothing more dangerous there than termites your only worry should be breaking one of the stairs."

Vex's face, already pale, lost another shade, and his jaw seemed to come unhinged. Even Evony's mocking tone was lost to him.

"That's, um, that's alright," Vex said. He took two stumbling steps backwards, and started to turn. "I, uh, I think I left my oven on. I'm just going to, uh, go and turn it off."

He started away, stuffing his hands down into his pockets. He turned back, and managed one last quip.

"Have fun storming the castle."

"So much for that," Evony said. She turned back to her plans. Elsie came back. She was carrying to M16s, and two .45 caliber hand guns. Evony took them, smiled at Elsie, and strapped them in. It was at that moment, when the button catch clicked, that the fear dropped into her belly.

This wasn't some wild goose chase. This was a Werewolf Hunt, a pledge made by each person standing in the garage that they would not stop until the werewolf was dead. Or until they were dead. What had the wolf-shifter called it? Hrodvitnisson? Chasing the moon. They were chasing the moon alright, the brightest light in the night sky, one that had been painted red by the Norn.

Chasing the moon.


	19. The Show Must Go On

Chapter 18: The Show Must Go On

The theater sat before them, the roof on either side of the ticket booth had slouched under years of abuse and snow. The slouch gave the building an angry forbidden look, and the shattered marquees laying on the ground gave it fierce snarling teeth. Evony felt a chill, one bred from mortal terror. She could smell it, and she could taste it. The werewolf was here, and the damn thing was hungry.

"Termites," she said, scoffing at Vex, and trying to look strong. Her thoughts didn't help lead her in the strong direction, though. They were filled with vicious claws and gnashing teeth that had been created for one purpose, and one purpose only: Killing Fae. And, here she was willingly coming to the butcher's block, and she was pledged by blood to see it dead. If she didn't hold up that end of the bargain...

Let's just say the consequences weren't something she wanted to think about.

Evony turned to look back at her troops, all of them were looking green around the gills. She knew their mouths were dry, with the spit sucked out like the little vacuum dentists use. Evony wondered if they could taste the creature. It's wet dead dog scent gave a taste just like it sounded. Except there was the taste of blood here too. Human and Fae alike. Evony couldn't help but shudder.

"Are we really going in there?" One of the berserkers asked. Evony looked at him, and that old morbid curiosity got to her. Was he going to die at the hands of the werewolf, or suffer the consequences of one who refused to follow along with the blood pact.

Evony turned her attention back to the theater's face. It stared at her, stared through her, and had no thoughts whether or not they should or shouldn't enter. She swallowed, but there was no spit in her mouth to go down with it.

"Let's go," she said, trying to sound confident. She started across the road, she wasn't sure if they were following her, but she refused to look back. She had no desire to be Lot's second wife. She continued through until they reached the marquee. She cocked her M16, stepped over the broken sign and disappeared into the building.

The others remained beside the SUVs. They watched Evony disappear into the building. They thought about the blood pact they made to hunt down and kill the werewolf.

The wolf shifter, a beta named Jacob, took a step out of the crowd, he cocked his M16.

"We've got a wolf to kill."

It was all that needed to be said. The others followed suit, as Jacob walked across the street.

The woman, the werewolf, who could no long her remember her name. Was it Jessa Mae, Sarah Mae, what was it? But, though it plagued her, she remembered their were no need for names. There was food, marching into her den. They were looking for her, and she would let them find her. But, it was her house, and guests weren't welcome.

With her foot on the ledge she went up, and over the side of the building. She hit the ground hard, absorbing all the impact with her knees and her right arm. A fall like that would have killed her last week. The wolf was more and more there.

The hunger.

Oh, the GodDamn Hunger!

There was no escaping it, even feeding didn't stop it.

She moved fast, the wolf's speed joining with her body, like the heightened senses, and the strength. God, she's never been so strong. With the wolf she could probably bench press the whole of her high school football team.

She shook her head, she had to think clearly. Her home was under attack.

The werewolf leapt the broken marquees, and went in through the cracked half door as quiet as a ghost. She sniffed the air. One group, the one with the leader had gone down through the main doors into the theater proper. The second group had gone up, to the balconies, and probably the cat walks in heaven. The third, this one had a wolf shifter (Dyson?), had gone down into Hell. She would follow them, and see if that was Dyson, and she would deal with those who accompanied him.

Jacob's eyes twitched left and right, his head moving like a meerkat trying to look in every direction for danger. His heightened wolf senses were useless here, the miasma of the werewolf hung like a cloud of fog around them.

He took another step, and stopped. There was a noise, a little plink like a button coming undone. The twisted around, and the dying began.

The werewolf's approach was swift and silent. They didn't hear her as she approached, and didn't notice anything till she was on them.

There were two men wearing red bandanas walking at the back, closest to her. Than there were three more leading the pack, scanning this way and that flashlights attached to their guns. The one in the middle was the wolf shifter. She couldn't tell if it was Dyson or not. It didn't seem tall enough.

She reached out, and unbuckled one of the rad hat man's guns and yanked the weapon from its holster.

"What the..." was all he managed to say before his brains were painting the roof.

"Holy shit," The other Red Cap said. He spun, bringing his M16 to bear. Sh already had a hold on the dead red cops M16, and had it trained on the other. A shower of bullets through the red cap into the wall.

The others were well alerted by now. They'd turned, trained their weapons on her, and there was a momentary pause.

"Eat silver bitch!" one of the bikers said. The three of them opened up. The wolf shifter dodged and started trying to get his .45 free. Bullet wounds exploded all over her body. She took it with absolute ease and confidence. Two bullets went through her brain, but none of them were silver. She smiled.

Clips emptied, and they watched the dust clear and found her. Her body had begun to heat, and every bullet that hit her fell from it's wound, and dropped to the ground.

She smiled.

Her guns were up and blazing, the berserkers fell.

Jacob finally got his .45 free.

"Don't move or I'll shoot!" Jacob said. His hand couldn't steady the gun. She smiled.

"You're a wolf shifter,"she said taking two steps closer. She watched him squeeze the trigger. The gun flashed, and a fiery pain erupted in her shoulder. Her face half shifted, claws and fangs coming out, fur spreading fast, but she managed to stop it halfway. She knew what was coming. The insanity, the madness of the permanent fever would destroy her sanity. What little of it that remained. She had to bring Dyson to her soon.

"You're a wolf shifter," she said again, reaching up with a still shifted hand, and plucked the bullet out of her shoulder. "But you are not Dyson."

She moved like a bolt of lightning, shifting as she went, destroying her clothes as the wolf come out.

Jacob stared up at his death. A monster three times the size of an average man, and ten times as strong as an Olympic body builder, its eyes a fierce shining yellowish gold. Jacob thought about the gun in his hand. And, even that thought wasn't complete when the wolf tore his throat out.

The werewolf pulled, sinking her teeth in deeper, until the head come free with a popping sound. She tore the back of the skull off, and began to eat the brains inside.

There was movement near her, and her ears perked up. She looked and found the berserkers moving, getting back to their feet and retrieving their guns. They reloaded, and aimed, and she dropped her snack.

A snarl was all the warning the berserkers got.

Gooseflesh crawled up Evony's spine. They'd heard the gunshots, then the silence, and then there were snarls and roars. The werewolf was here. It lived here, she'd seen no evidence of that, yet, but she knew it was true. They had walked into the belly of the beast, and they were going to pay for their arrogance. They were going to pay for it with their lives.

A hand found Evony's shoulder, she started to scream, but another hand covered her mouth. It was Elsie. Her eyes were cold.

"Your boyfriend lied to us," Elsie said and shook her head. "This wolf hasn't lost her mind yet."

"What makes you think that?" Evony asked in a small, shaking voice.

"The gunfire, and the dying,it started before the roars."

"What do we do?" Evony asked.

"Try and catch it in a pincer maneuver." Elsie said. She pulled out her radio, spoke into it for a moment in a tongue Evony couldn't understand. She stopped, spoke again, then clipped the radio back onto her belt. She pointed up at the catwalks.

"Team Beta was attacked down in hell, the quickest way for the beast to get to us is going to be through one of the stage trapdoors. Team Gamma is going to take position in the catwalks in heaven. When the beast comes for us, they'll pepper it with fire, and we'll fire from our position, catching it in a crossfire."

Evony smiled, and resisted the urge to reach out and pinch Elise's cheeks."I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

Elsie gave her a dead look. Then slung her M16 over her shoulder, and drew her .45. In a silent whisper of a voice she said one last thing to Evony.

"You're going to wish every round was silver."

The werewolf, the beast, the Fae killer, she had been hiding in the shadows listening to Elsie and Evony. The one who smelled of slithering crawling things was right. The trap doors were the quickest way to the stage, they must not have expected her to move so fast.

She tightened her paw around the rope she'd made from one of the Red Cap's intestines, and she'd strung each head of team Beta on the intestines. It was a gruesome trophy, and a weapon nearly as strong as her claws.

She looked up, and with improved vision she saw the members of team Gamma spreading out along the catwalks. It was likely, very likely, that the ropes holding them up, would not stand up to the type of fight the snake shifter wanted. But, that doesn't mean she couldn't take the situation into her own hands.

The heads went flying out into the crowd, and she charged for the back wall. Her claws further into the wall. She looked up at each of them, one by one, judging just how fast she'd have to move to keep her weight from snapping the boards and ropes.

A grim smile spread across her her lips and a low snarl escaped her throat.

Panicked, team Gamma spun on their heels, and their flashlights moved frantically. When the first one hit her, she leapt.

The heads rolled to Evony's feet just before the screams started. They could see the muzzle flashes high above their heads. They saw flashes of the beast, and the bodies started to fall.

"Oh, gods," Elsie said. "Open fire!"

"Wraith is up there!" One of the berserkers said. Wraith was another snake shifter, Elsie's mate, and the leader of team Gamma. His head rolled right to Elsie's feet.

"Not anymore," she said, and started firing up into heaven. Others followed suit. Rope, wood flesh and bone rained down from on high.

Evony felt the terror tight in her chest now, she was backing away from the group, forgetting the.45 in her hand. She forgot about the consequences of abandoning a wolf hunt. She wanted to live.

When the werewolf, bigger than life, bigger than any monster she'd ever seen dropped onto the stage, cratering the boards beneath it. Evony ran.

The werewolf hit the stage, and sprung forward before it had the chance to collapse. Team Alpha was right in front of her, they were breaking ranks, and running. Only one stood and fought. The snake shifter, like the one above. And, she was shooting silver. Until...

_Click._

Elsies eyes went wide, out of silver bullets. An, she'd only hit the beast twice. _Where's Evony?_ Was Elsie's last thought. The werewolf tore her head off.

The others died, one by one the beast found them. It tore them apart, even beating berserkers to death with their own limbs.

Finally, there was only one left.

The monster changed back into the girl. She was short with ratty blonde hair. She'd been pretty once. The wolf had changed that. Even untransformed the wolf was starting to leak into her features. The claws were there always now, and the hair stayed in patches around her face and other parts of her, and her fangs, they were permanent now too. Then there was the blood, some of it was hers, most of it wasn't.

She turned the corner, and Evony sat, leaning against the doors.

"They weren't locked when we came in," she said looking at the girl who held a monster inside her.

"I locked it when I came in," she said. "I play with my food, but I don't want it to escape."

"You must be Jessa Mae then," Evony said. She stood up, and stared at the girl before her. She was short, maybe five feet even, and the only streaks in her hair were smears of blood. "You don't look like you're in your forties."

The werewolf smiled. "I'm not over that hill yet."

Evony's hand moved like lightning. She drew her gun and fired.

The werewolf cocked an overgrown eyebrow as Evony's corpse hit the floor. The werewolf had not been the target. Evony blew her brains out onto the door.

"Damn," the werewolf said. She picked up Evony's corpse with no effort, and went back into the theater proper. She was hungry, and tonight was an all you can eat buffet.


	20. Seen but Not Seeing

Chapter 19: Seen but not Seeing

It had been four hours since Evony signaled they were going in, and the silence was frustrating. Dyson glanced at the phone again, and stood up. He began pacing around the hospital bed. Willing the phone to ring. Willing Kenzi to wake up. He wanted something to happen, a direction or place where he could stick his nose to the ground, and get going.

Doing nothing was killing him faster than the werewolf could.

"I don't want any hospital food," Kenzi said. Dyson whipped around to look at her. Her eyes were barely cracked open, and the transfusion had done its work. She no longer looked like she was a step away from death.

"I know that ceiling," Kenzi said. She tried to point, but a leather bound cuff kept her from moving her arm. Dyson saw the wince on her face as the leather cuff rubbed against her stitches. "Why can't I move my arm?"

"They've got you restrained," Dyson said. "You're under a suicide watch."

"I wouldn't try to kill myself," Kenzi said. Her voice was still thick with the morphine and lost any exclamation that would go on with her last statement. Chances are she was hirgh in the sky than the space station. "Suicide is not cool."

"I know sweetie," Dyson said. He leaned against the bed, trying not to disturb any of the wires holding on to the monitors beside her bed. He put his arm back around her neck, and she moved as much as she could to be comforted by his heat. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"Bo," Kenzi said. "She was kneeling on something and looking at this woman torn in half. She was an old lady, related to the werewolf, her grandmother or something. And, Bo's face, and her nose was missing, maybe the eyes too."

Kenzi looked to Dyson, and expression of horror on her face. She understood the cuts on her arms and the suicide watch. "I blacked out didn't I?"

"I believe so," Dyson said, he didn't know, couldn't know if that was true or not. Those who committed suicide were often out of their minds when they did it. So, the possibility of a black out was possible. He mentally shrugged and kissed the top of Kenzi's head.

"Uh...Mr. Thornwood," a nervous shaking voice came from outside the curtain. Dyson got up and slid the curtain open enough so that he could see the messenger, but Kenzi couldn't. And, the messenger in question was one of the Asians, from Burma, that had been there when Kenzi escaped from this place. He was rattled, beyond anything Dyson could understand. He looked like a member of the walking dead with pallid flesh and wide unseeing eyes. But, it wasn't like it was with Hale, this man's heart was still beating. He smelled of urine.

"This...is...for you," he said, and held out a small velvet box, like one might use for a pair of reading glasses.

Dyson took the box, and he could feel the same power from it. He opened it, looked, and closed it again.

"Who delivered this?"

"It was a girl, maybe five feet with blonde hair." the doctor shook his head, and drew back from Dyson. "There were streaks of blood in it. And, she was totally naked."

Dyson watched him, there was more, but it seemed to be overloading his brain.

"She was...the...the...werewolf."

With that his legs gave way and he collapsed. Dyson couldn't tell if he went unconscious before or after his head bounced.

"Hit the 'call nurse' on there," Dyson said with a short glance back at Kenzi. He knelt beside the doctor, checked his pulse; erratic, but strong. And his air. He was breathing fine. Still, Dyson hadn't heard the little chime. He stood, and looked back at Kenzi. "Have you..."

Kenzi lifted one arm as high as it would go. It wasn't even close to the call nurse button.

"Oh," Dyson said. He walked over and hit the button for her. Then he helped the nurses load their new patient on a stretcher.

Then Dyson had time to examine the box. "He said she was five feet, but that can't be right. Jessa Mae was five eight."

"What're you mumbling about?" Kenzi asked.

"I know who the werewolf is," Dyson said. "Or rather I thought I did." He looked up at Kenzi and sighed. He started the story again. "Her name was Jessa Mae McCoy..."

After having told it three times or so, he was getting comfortable with it enough to say it as a monologue at a talent competition. This also helped cut the time of the telling.

"So, you think the werewolf is Jessa Mae," Kenzi said. "And, she's getting back at you for breaking her heart. Also she was crazy enough to hunt down a werewolf, and get it to infect her."

Dyson nodded.

"Seems like she was a crazy bitch before you broke her heart," Kenzi said.

"I was in love," Dyson said. It was the only defense. "I didn't know I was going to have to break her heart. Something came up, and I had to deal with it personally. I didn't know this was going to happen. How could I?"

"You couldn't have," Kenzi said. "I don't know much about shifters but I'm pretty sure you can't see the future."

"True," Dyson said.

"What's in the box?" Kenzi asked, and eyed the box in Dyson's hands.

"You don't want to know," Dyson said.

"Tell me," was all she had to say the wire broke in Dyson's mind. He needed to sleep. He handed the box to Kenzi.

She opened it. "Oh my God. Are they Bo's?"

"No," Dyson said. "The Morrigan. She lead a team on a hunt for the werewolf. There were no survivors."

Dyson shook his head, and took the box. He looked down at the eyes in the box. They stared back up at him with idiot indifference. But, he felt like they were judging him, blaming him for their current condition. Dyson shuddered.

"Blonde with no auburn or ginger streaks except for blood. Five feet tall. Obsessed with me, and trying to kill the competition for my affections. But, it's not Jessa Mae. She's too short, and the hair is the wrong color." Dyson said. He closed the box and his eyes.

"Did you bring my pants?" Kenzi asked. "There's something in them that might help this."

"Sure," Dyson said. He got up and walked over to a small duffle bag, and pulled out the jeans Kenzi was wearing when they went to the house. He only took thirty or so seconds to pack, and they were the closest pair. Now he was glad he grabbed them. He pulled out the small corner of one picture.

"This it?" Dyson asked.

"Yeah," Kenzi said.

Dyson turned it over and found a little blonde girl. He turned the picture back over to check for names. If there had been any writing there the fire had destroyed it. He looked back at the picture, at the little girl. He wondered what happened to her, and where she came from. Was she Jessa Mae's daughter from her only marriage? Was she…

He handed the photo to Kenzi and looked down into his hands.

"I think she's the werewolf. It was the same girl I saw at the coffee shop." Kenzi said. She looked closely at the picture, close enough to see all the little freckles and imperfections in her skin. She looked at how the hair fell, and she saw her ear. Her left ear, almost hidden by her hair, there were three silver hoops cutting a strange path up her ear. The same as it was on the ear Dyson had received at the coffee shop.

Was that really four days ago?

"Maybe," Dyson said. "He popped the box open. He studied the eyes for a moment, then looked at the top of the box. There was a little pull string there. Something that wasn't part of the box to start with. He pulled the string.

Dyson,

I see what you did there, and now you can see it too. How you got the big bad Fae boss to come and try to kill me. It wasn't very nice.

Now…

Now…God I can't THINK!

The hunger is here. It's always here. I ate them all, I ate them and I'm still hungry.

Time is running out dearest.

I'm going to visit your bitch tonight, and they you will have to find us.

Find me soon Dyson, time for us is running out, please find me.

Your Little Angel of Death


	21. Werewolves: A History

Chapter 20: Werewolves, A History

"Trick!" Kenzi shouted, looking up from her not so bad hospital lunch. A smile spread across her face, and she nearly sent her lunch all over the floor when she jumped. She didn't make it very far. Her legs were still bound to the bed.

Trick moved a bouquet of flowers to the side, and looked up at Kenzi. A lot of the equipment had been removed, and the number of wires attached to her went down. And, the morphine drip had been removed.

"You didn't think I'd forget about you, did you," Trick said smiling. There was something behind that smile, something that smelled of creeping fear. And, in a way, Kenzi could feel it. She hadn't read the letter that came with the eyes. Dyson had taken both the box and the letter to The Ash. He must be hoping this turn of events would soften The Ash up. Maybe they'd get that hunting party together and take care of the werewolf.

_One team had already tried that,_ her mind said. _And, it got the Morrigan killed._

_But, this team will have Dyson on it, _Kenzi thought, fighting against the negativity.

_And, that's what the creature wants, _the negativity said.

And to that, Kenzi didn't have an answer. She couldn't have an answer. The werewolf wanted Dyson, and it was going to use her to get to him.

_Why would the werewolf want Dyson, if it wasn't Jessa Mae?_

"Long thoughts?" Trick said. He looked up at her, with that same smile, a knowing terrifying smile.

"About the werewolf," Kenzi said, nodding.

"What do you want to know?" Trick said. He sat down and pulled the chair up as close as possible to the bed. He folded his hands in his lap, and looked up at Kenzi, waiting patiently like Gandalf listening to Bilbo go on about one thing or another.

"Everything," Kenzi said.

"That would take a century or two," Trick said.

"Well, what about a condensed version?"

"The werewolves as you know them from Hollywood and comic books, are not the same as these wolves." Trick said. "It's said that werewolves were both a curse and a gift. The Norn created the first werewolf after a rather nasty Dark Fae attack on the tree. The Norn used a human, and the dead body of a wolf shifter."

"That's why Dyson's so testy when the werewolves are mentioned." Kenzi said.

"I think I told you that before," Trick said, looking off to the side, looking inside his mind, really.

"Traumatic experience," Kenzi said. She lifted one hand to her head, and saw the bandages on her arm. "Two of them."

Trick nodded.

"Well," Trick continued. "The Norn gave that human a gift by making a new underfae, one that feeds on Fae. What she didn't count on, what she couldn't have foreseen had she been the Oracle at Delphi, was the way that gift would mutate once it hit the human blood stream.

"It became a virus, one that can be spread through a bite, a scratch as deep as a paper cut, or intercourse. She also didn't see the affect the Fae powers would have on the human."

Trick shook his head, and sighed.

"Bo might have told you about the hunger she feels, but compared to the werewolf's it's a drop in the pond. Er, ocean. Well, a better comparison would be zombies.

"The human looses their mind to that hunger, and their ability to shift is lost. Basically, they become stuck as mindless Fae killing juggernauts."

Trick took a deep breath and leaned back in the chair. He watched the ceiling for a few minutes, looking like he expected some sort of mucus to be dripping from it: maybe something along the lines of basilisk skin or Naga venom. Kenzi couldn't tell, but she knew Trick had a reason for everything he did. He really was this world's version of Gandalf, maybe even Merlin.

"Trick?" Kenzi said. She poked at him with one finger, winced at the pain it caused her, and Trick jumped like he'd been shot by a gun.

"You were spacey there for a mintues," Kenzi said.

"Was I," Trick nodded. "Yes, yes, I guess I was."

"What were you thinking about?"

"The last time I dealt with a werewolf." Trick said, he took out the makings of a pipe, and got it going before continuing. "It was my half brother. He was human. My father made Dionysus look boring if that tells you anything. Anyway, my half brother was jealous of the Fae, and more so with me. I was father's favorite, and the next in line for the throne. He hunted down a witchdoctor he knew, one that had a werewolves head preserved in a glass jar. He robbed the witchdoctor, and make the head bite him, and the witchdoctor became his first meal."

"Woh, woh, woh," Kenzi said, shaking her head. "You can get infected by a dead one?"

"Yes," Trick said. "At least in that case. I've never seen it happen again."

"How did you handle it?"

"Well," Trick said, and sighed, a weary and ancient sigh. "I wrote a little story, in blood, in my blood, and my brother fell from a cliff. We then hacked him into several parts, put those parts in boxes, and sunk them in the ocean"

"Can you do that now?" Kenzi said. "Could you do it, and save me?"

"Nothing's going to happen to you," Trick said, a genuine smile spreading across his face. "As long as you don't do anything stupid." He tapped one arm, and a look of shame overcame Kenzi's face, like a low bordering of black fog or smoke. She was going to live with these scars for the rest of her life.

She smiled, and tried to throw her shame away. "I do stupid things, all the time, but this was an idiotic thing to do. And, I am certainly not an idiot."

The two of them started to laugh.

"I almost forgot," Trick said, he smiled and pulled out a small box.

"Please tell me there's not something gruesome in there."

"Nope," Trick said. He opened the box and handed Kenzi a thin silver blade. The tip was sharp while the rest was dull. She turned it this way and that in her hands. Already she was thinking of where she wanted to put it.

"It's a letter opener," she finally said, but didn't let on what she was thinking.

"The tip," Trick said. "Is sharp as a cut diamond, and will pierce any type of flesh no matter how strong that flesh is." He smiled, wide and natural, and patted his chest right over his heart. "Aim for the heart, it won't kill the werewolf, but it will stun it long enough to take its head."

Kenzi nodded. Trick got up out of his chair and started for the curtain.

"Why does it have to be silver?"

"I don't know," Trick said. "I've never bothered to check, I just know it works."

"Thank you," Kenzi said as Trick went to the curtain and pulled it open. Her face paled as she saw what was hidden by the curtain.

The woman, the young blonde woman, was standing right on the other side of the curtain. She was naked, her eyes were a yellowish-gold, and her teeth were the razor sharp K9's of a German Sheppard.

"You're welcome," Trick said and turned. He found the werewolf before him, and fear gripped the very depths of his soul. "Oh, gods."

The werewolf lashed out with a single back hand that sent trick rolling. She stepped past the curtain, and pulled it too behind her.

"You and I have a lot to talk about." The werewolf said. "You must know the things I know, and know the truth about Dyson."

She took three steps towards the hospital bed.

The lights went out when Kenzi screamed.

And, even in the total darkness Kenzi could see those yellowish-gold orbs getting closer and closer.

_Where are you Dyson?_


	22. Puppy Snatching

Chapter 21: Puppy Snatching

Hell broke loose in The Ash's compound. The werewolf masquerading in the skin of a human came right up to the front doors. She tore the guards' throats out with her hands, which were now almost entirely wolfen. She walked in through the doors the guards left open. The receptionist a young wood nymph no more than a hundred years old, sat staring at the blonde as she removed the trench coat and transformed in the middle of the lobby.

The werewolf tore the receptionists head off before she realized she pissed herself.

The werewolf went down the hall from there, and fried the power circuits, effectively making this the perfect hunting territory.

She saw through yellowish-gold eyes, eyes that could see in the dark as well as the light. She ran through the halls, undetected, passing nearly thirty Fae before she reached the med center. A grin, which had more in common with a snarl, spread across her lips. The lighting was just starting to go out in this part of the building. She looked through the glass doors, and found a blonde woman, who was maybe in her thirties, sitting in front of a desk with her back to the door.

_I need her too_, the girl thought, inside a mind that she was losing more and more control over. The monster wanted her dead, it wanted all of the Fae in this building dead. The hunger was so damn intense now. It was all she could think about, save for Dyson and the plan. She needed Dyson. She couldn't kill him, and the Fae were on high alert right now.

_Dyson will be one of those fighting against me._ She thought. _I must be more careful when they arrive en masse._

Still there was the problem of the woman. She couldn't be killed, but she, the wolf, had to make up her mind soon. It was probably an odd sight, a nine foot tall killing machine with muscles any bodybuilder would kill to have standing in front of a pair of glass doors, it's head cocked to one side.

With great care she opened the door, and fit herself through the tight space as best she could. She padded across the room, keeping her claws from touching the tiled floor, and as she did this, she changed, shrinking till she was five feet even, her muscles compressing until they were the exquisitely toned muscles of an Olympic runner, and walking became much easier when her feet returned to their regular size 6. Well, they were almost regular, just like her hands, the claws had become a permanent feature.

She stood behind the woman, calculating (through the hunger) just how much force she'd need to knock her out without killing her. Then she let loose.

Lauren saw the hand coming at her a mere fraction of a second before it hit her. Then the world went dark.

The werewolf checked Lauren's pulse, was satisfied that it was still strong.

Then she could smell Dyson, the scent of his mark so profound it cut through the hunger. Dyson's bitch was in here. She smiled, she had suspected as much, but didn't know until now. She turned towards the little curtained area. She could hear the voice of a small man, and she could feel the tingle and the thrill it would be to bathe in his magical, mystical, blood. There wasn't time for that.

The little man's shadow moved across the curtain, down to where she was standing. He would open the curtain. She could take him while his back was turned, pluck him up and drive her canines into his neck and feed from him as a vampire would.

_No._

_Dyson's bitch comes first._

_I'm hungry…so very, very hungry._

The short man pulled the curtain open still looking at Dyson's bitch. Kenzi saw her and Kenzi's eyes, widened. Her face paled every response human being can have for the deepest fear crossed her face.

"You're welcome," Trick said. He turned back before Kenzi could speak a warning. "Oh, Gods!"

The werewolf lashed out with a back hand, and struck Trick's knock out button, sending him rolling across the room, twisted into an odd position when he stopped. The wolf wasn't srue if she had killed him or not.

She stepped past the curtain, and pulled it closed behind her, then she twisted and locked a fierce gaze on Kenzi, and when she smiled she showed nothing but fang.

"You and I have a lot to talk about," the werewolf said. "You must know the things I know, and know the truth about Dyson."

The lights went out as the werewolf approached the bed. She couldn't help but scream when the lights went out.

"Son of a bitch," Dyson said. He smacked the side of the security monitor, but it stayed blank. He'd been in here dozing when the werewolf made her appearance. And, he jerked awake when The Ash touched his shoulder. Even now, The Ash stood over top of him. The emergency lights were working, and it gave The Ash a sinister expression.

"Smacking it will do no good," The Ash said. "We know the wolf is in the build, we just have to make a guess at where the beast is."

"I know where it is," Dyson said, his voice accompanied by a low snarl. He was up out of the chair, and running through the door. The Ash couldn't help but smile.

"The wolf's in medical," Dyson yelled at the guards as they charged towards the security center. He blew past them, and half of them turned to follow. Their boots, heavy soled work boots with steel toes slapped against the tiled floor. Dyson knew stealth would be impossible with them behind him, but taking on the wolf one on one would be suicide.

He'd do it if it meant saving Kenzi.

The pack charged through the halls, cutting around a corner. Dyson's eyes caught it a second too late. He put on the breaks, but didn't, couldn't, stop in time. He slammed into the werewolf's side, and bounced.

Dyson had never seen a werewolf in person, almost no one in The Ash's compound had seen a werewolf. They'd all heard the rumors, about how big and strong it's supposed to be. And, the shadows made by the emergency lighting made it bigger.

It's lips pulled back in a snarl, and it looked down at Dyson, contemplating what to do with him. He stared right back at the wolf, stared death in the face, and he saw Kenzi hanging like a rag doll over the wolf's shoulder.

Dyson didn't even think about it. He went right into battle mode, and slashed through space. He connected, his claws ripped through flesh, and them monster's blood dripped onto the ground.

The wolf jerked its head away, a small yelp escaping its throat, but there was no fear. It grabbed Dyson, wrapping its massive paw around his neck and raising him into the air. He heard guns being cocked.

"Don't shoot," he said. The wolf tightened its grip, and Dyson had to dig at the paw to keep it from crushing his larynx. "Has Kenzi. Don't shoot."

The guards aimed, typical Fae racism, they'd kill Kenzi if it meant killing the werewolf too.

"Jessa Mae," Dyson said, taking a shot in the dark. He wasn't sure where the evidence pointed on the wolf's identity, but Jessa Mae seemed to be the best place to start.

"You don't want to do this," Dyson said, through strangled breaths. "I'm here, you found me, I'll go with you if you put Kenzi down."

The wolf clicked it's jaws together, twice, and its eyes moved. It looked at Dyson, the guards, and back again. With its other arm it started to pick Kenzi up.

But, there was only one problem.

Kenzi woke up, and slammed the letter opener deep into the werewolf's side. The wolf howled, and clenched. Kenzi heard a popping sound in Dyson's neck and she saw his body go limp.

"God, no!" Kenzi said.

The werewolf tossed Dyson's lifeless body at the guards. They couldn't move quick enough and went down like bowling pens.

Kenzi and the wolf shared a strange moment they looked at Dyson, together, and they both felt his death was their fault.

The guards didn't give them much more time, and the werewolf disappeared into the gloom.

For Kenzi the night became a blur, and she wished…

A/N: Due to circumstances beyond my control, life in other words, I'm not going to be able to work on In the Morning Light. There's just too much on my plate. I'm sorry. I will try to keep this hiatus down to two or three weeks. I'm sorry about that.


	23. Hospital

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to In the Morning Light! :D

Chapter 22: Hospital

Oblivion surrounded him. His eyes could move, rolling in their sockets and looking at everything around him.

First, he saw the werewolf (Jessa Mae?), then he went flying, the world spinning around him as he hit the Ash's guards. He didn't feel it when he hit them. He didn't feel it when he landed on the floor. He was filled with an absence of pain, it seemed to hurt more than anything.

Oblivion surrounded him.

Dyson tried to move his arms; tried to move his legs; he tried to scream. Nothing worked. Nothing except his eyes, and those were starting to fill up with black fire.

There was a roar. The werewolf as it ran away with Kenzi over its shoulder.

Kenzi!

Dyson had to move. He had to save Kenzi. She was the only thing, the only light left in his life. He had to save her.

Death was calling his name.

"Dyson! Dyson!" that voice was Lauren, she bent down into his field of vision, and she looked like an angel. Beyond her, however, was a black shape, a cloud of mist bonding one drop of black with another until the shape was full and familiar.

_Dyson_, this voice said in his mind. This was the Angel of Death. The reaper, the only Fae that would truly live forever, at least until it came time for him to reap God.

He was thin and very angular. He had a high forehead, extended by a receding hairline. But, the hair that remained was black and virile. His eyes were like diamonds, sparkling, not in the light of the compound or the hallway, but with their own deadly light. His dress was simple, a monk's robe with a rope belt tied around his waist. The robe was brown instead of black, and there was no scythe.

_Dyson,_ the Angel of Death said. _Is this your opus? The final moments of your life spent trying to save a silly little human girl._

_The wolf spirit had higher hopes for you, but…_

"Dyson!" Lauren said again. "Hold on Dyson. Don't let go." And, back to the crowd. "I need a telepath! Now!"

_The time has come for me to deliver your soul to the Elysian Fields._

Death stretched his hand out, his fingers long and thin with a ring of power on his forefinger. The hand started to glow as it neared Dyson's chest. Dyson could feel oblivion approaching faster and faster.

"Here!" somebody said. He pushed through the crowd, broke through to where Lauren was, in the midst of the rubberneckers watching the final scene of the opera.

"Make him turn!" Lauren said. Her hands were on Dyson's throat. She felt his pulse slipping, skipping ever other beat. Each beat coming slower and slower.

Death's fingers touched Dyson's chest and slid through his flesh like it was immaterial. Dyson did feel that pain, like a thousand stars going supernova in his chest. His soul was crying its last, and Dyson could see it as Death pulling his hand back; a glowing orb, blue in color, with strands trying and trying to hold on. Dyson's breathing came faster and faster. His heart wasn't slowing, but racing, at least so far as his soul was concerned.

"What?" The telepath asked. He was dumbfounded, looking at Lauren like she was an idiot.

"Get into his mind and make him change," Lauren said. "He's a shifter for Christ's sake."

"Oh."

Dyson felt the boy, and didn't feel him as he dug through Dyson's mind, looking for the trigger.

Death was to far though. He'd almost pulled Dyson's soul all the way out of his body. Death opened the small coin purse he wore on his belt, and lowered the glowing blue orb into it.

The telepath found the trigger.

For Dyson, everything went white.

"You made me kill him!"

"You made me kill him!"

"You made me kill him!"

The werewolf yelled, and slammed her fists through the plaster wall of the room they were in. At one time, it was the theater's green room, now it was her room.

Kenzi was curled up in one corner, shrinking as far back into it as possible. The werewolf had shifted, mostly back to human. Her hands remained deadly three fingered (and an opposable thumb) paws with steak knives for fingernails, and her legs permanently turned to match a canines. The feet were paws, with claws just as deadly as her hands. Kenzi noticed, and wondered why, the werewolf remained naked. Clothes would no longer cover her new frame.

"Ahhhhhhh!" The werewolf howled. She twisted around to stare at Kenzi with those hideous yellowish-gold eyes. They seemed to bore into her and look at her soul. She could feel the werewolf judging her, putting her soul on an old fashioned scale and compared its weight to that of a feather, and worst of all, she knew how the scale would fall.

"You made me kill him!" The werewolf yelled this final line into Kenzi's face. She could see the werewolf's mouth half filled with fangs. The sight didn't scare her. It filled her with rage. Blind brutal rage.

"You bitch!" Kenzi said jerking to her feet. She even had the gall to slap the werewolf across the face.

The werewolf, the blonde girl, was once in a happy photo standing beside her mother at a picnic. There was a shadow hanging over them even then. That picture was the last of the happy times. And, insanity passed from mother to daughter in one slap.

Instead of tearing Kenzi's arm off and beating her to death with it, the werewolf took a step back, and held one hand up to the fading red handprint on her chin. Once again her face was that of the innocent little girl in the picture. Surprise took hold of Kenzi, as it did the werewolf. Kenzi started to step forward, to take hold of the little girl's hands and apologize.

Sanity stepped back in before she had. Even the thought of it made her shudder. The anger didn't come back though. The fear didn't either.

"None of this would have happened if it wasn't for you," Kenzi said. Her voice cold and logical. Her expression a perfect mimicry of _Star Trek_'s Mr. Spock. "You started the murders, you killed Bo, and the dark fey. I saw their mangled corpses as you carried me through the halls. You've done all of this. Why?"

"You'll never know, little girl," the werewolf was back, and her eyes slid into gleaming daggers of hate. She reached around to her side, where the letter opener was still buried. Her claws wrapped around it, and with a grunt and grimace she yanked it out.

Blood dripped from the blade, as a fire blazed in her side. Still, she licked blood from the blade and smiled. Her arm worked, down and up, and the letter opener spun through the air and clattered to the ground at Kenzi's feet.

"You can try to kill me," the werewolf said. "Now or in my sleep, what you think is my sleep. But, I will not kill you yet. I've had quite enough to eat lately. You might be lucky enough to live to the full moon."

With that said the werewolf closed the door, ran a chain through the two handles, clamped them together with a padlock and clipped the lock closed. She turned and gave Kenzi a devil's smile.

A/N: Also, while your reading things, check out my Blog, which can be found via a Google search for A Writer's Psychosis, or at the addy: .com. There is also a link too it in my profile.

A/A/N: You can also find twitter and facebook links, though I'm really not big on social networking. Lol. Though, if you message me, tell me where you found me, and say good things about me, I might let you be my friend. Lol.

A/W/A/N: I don't really have anything else to say. I just wanted to use the abbreviation I came up with. It's Another Witty Author's Note :D


	24. No More Tricks

A/N: Very nearly forgot to post this one. Sorry it's three days late.

Chapter 23: No More Tricks

_The world around him was spinning, Lauren was on one side holding his head up straight, and the Angel of Death was on the other. He held Dyson's soul in his hand, drawing it out of Dyson, letting the eternal cold fill the detective's body. Death was trying to claim it. He was going to drop it in his purse and exchange it for a beer or two at the Tavern on Main, in the City of Dis._

_Lauren on the other side was yelling about something. A telepath or something._

_Then Dyson felt the probing in his mind, a far away feather light touch._

_The explosion._

_The world went white._

_And, the Angel of Death's cheated howl could be heard by the half eaten betrayers on the Ninth level._

Dyson jerked up, expecting to knock heads with Lauren, but he went all the way up. His arms, oh great glory his arms kept him from falling back. He flexed them, lowering himself and raising back up. He wiggled his toes, and a moment of joy filled him.

His neck had been broken, and he was paralyzed, almost dead. The werewolf did it, after Kenzi stabbed her with something. And, there was the shadow that fell over his little moment of joy.

"You're alive," Trick said. The sound came from the left, and when Dyson looked, he found Trick. The old bartender was laying beside him in a clean clinical hospital bed. The covers were rolled back, and he was mostly sitting up. His head, and one eye, was covered in white gauze bandages. There was a deep red stain over his left eye.

"Lauren wasn't sure if you were going to wake up or not," Trick said. He tried to smile, and it became a grimace. "The shift worked to heal your neck, but there was something more, something she couldn't measure with 'scientific means'."

"The Angel," Dyson said, and sat back. He laid an arm over his eyes. Then shot right back up. "Kenzi!"

Dyson slid his legs off the bed, and stood up…then fell down.

"Fuck!" Dyson said. He pushed himself up off the floor, blood dripping from his busted nose. "What the…"

"Your paralysis is cured," Lauren said. "But, you've still come back from the very brink of death. You need time to rest, and recover your strength."

"I have to find Kenzi," Dyson said, looking up at Lauren. He was trying to get back to his feet. His hands took hold of the rails on the side of the hospital bed, and preformed a pull up. One arm went across the bed and pulled. The other hand pushed down on the bar while he got his feet under him.

Dyson stood again. Lauren tried to help. He waved her away.

"I have to find Kenzi," Dyson said again. By sheer force of will he stood, straight and tall. Those in the room could feel the feverish heat of his concentration.

He couldn't keep it through the first step.

Lauren caught him before he got to smash his nose again. Her knees bent, but steadied as she shifted Dyson's weight towards the bed. He fought at first, then gave in.

"Damn it," Dyson said. He let Lauren put his legs back up and hung his head.

"It's been three days," Trick said. His face was grim, and he shook his head. "The likelihood…"

"Don't tell me," Dyson said. "Never tell me the odds or the likelihood. She's alive."

"This is like Bo," Lauren said. She sat on the edge of Dyson's bed, making sure she was out of arms reach. "We don't know how long she was held by the werewolf before she was killed."

"And, the Ash has sent out two man hunting parties trying to find the werewolf." Trick said. "Kenzi gave us a gift, if it was the last thing she's done, it was a miracle!"

"How?" Dyson said.

"Kenzi stabbed the werewolf before it left the complex. There was a blood trail. It went cold halfway across the city, but…" Lauren said. She pursed her lips and rubbed her hands on her slacks. "The dark Fae found the werewolf, the Ash's men will too."

"Evony and her team found the werewolf because of me," Dyson shook his head. "I sent them to their deaths. I'm not going to do the same now. If anybody has to die, it's me. And, I'll do it taking the werewolf down."

"Dyson," Lauren said. She cocked her head to one side. "The werewolf may be dead already. There hasn't been any activity in the three days you've been asleep. Kenzi might not only have given us the blood trail. She might have fatally wounded it."

"There is no proof," Trick said. "No body, no proof. And, we can assume the same for Kenzi. Now, Lauren, will you please excuse us. I'd like to speak to Dyson alone."

"You're both my patients," Lauren said. "And, neither of you are well enough for serious conversations. Stress impedes the healing process."

"When did you a hippy doctor?" Dyson asked. Lauren shot him a nasty look, and shook her head.

"Men," she said, and stalked off to find something else to occupy her time.

Trick waited, both of them silent until they were sure Lauren was out of ear shot.

"You saw the Angel?" Trick said. His face was grim, the bandages casting shadows on his face that made him look old, haggard. Dyson had never seen, nor thought it was possible that the Blood King could reach that stage of his life.

"Yes," Dyson said. "He came to claim my soul, to deliver me to the Elysian Fields."

"Paradise across the river," Trick said. He brought one hand up to his face and bit down on his forefinger's middle knuckle. "It's always nice to know where you're going before you get there. But, why would the Angel himself come for you. He has many servants, more than the stars in the sky, to do his dirty work. And, many spirits are left to wander about, trying to find their own way across the river. But, why come down for you specifically?"

"Are you saying I'm unimportant?"

"No," Trick said. "Nothing like that. It's just curious. The Angel is the one Fae we know the least about. Even the Garuda couldn't best him."

"This situation is important to the pantheon then?" Dyson said and shook his head. "Why? Why the werewolf, the Angel, and Kenzi? What's the connection?"

"You are," Trick said. "I wish I had my pipe."

Trick leaned back in his bed, and rested his head on the pillow. He looked up at the ceiling, hoping for something, some sort of divine inspiration. There was none.

"You lost your eye?" Dyson said.

"It popped in the impact with the wall," Trick said. "I also have various other cracks and stitches in my head. She hits hard."

"Have you thought about…"

"Yes," Trick said. "I have, and I would, but with the higher powers, and the Angel involved, the ramifications could destroy all Fae."

"So, we're fucked."

Dyson laid back against his pillow, and covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow. He didn't see Trick nod, or the small smile that made its way across the Blood King's lips.

A/N: And, if you're still in the mood to read, check out.

It's an original short short. I hope you enjoy it. :)

Also, since Fanfiction is a bitch and won't put links in the story windows, please check out my profile for a link to my original short short The Maker of Destiny.


	25. The Theater

Chapter 24: The Theater

Kallahan squatted down over the cracked and broken pieces of road and tiles. He eyed one specific spot. He took his sunglasses off, and revealed a pair of scars, crossed, over his eyes. A split down the scars appeared, and in seconds quartets of pink and white flowers. The center was a beehive with its opening to the world served as pupils. The whole flower collapsed in and swelled out, a blink, except for the briars that grew on each leaf. Those briars would be deadly to anybody he used them on. Now, however, he was using their infrared capabilities.

That one specific spot on the ground had a heat signature, one in the shape of a half human half monster foot. He looked up, at the broken marquee and the door beyond it. The heat patterns were everywhere.

"Damn werewolves," Kallahan said, an spit on the heat print.

"What?" Devon (his mother pronounced it Divine) said, and looked down at his partner. Kallahan didn't have to turn to look at him. Instead, he rolled two of the eye stalk blossoms around to look at Devon. The big black vampire shuddered. "Don't do that, dude."

Kallahan smiled mischievously, drew his eye stalk blossoms back into his skull and closed the Xs across his eye sockets. He put his sunglasses on as well. "Sorry about that,"—with no sincerity behind it—"this place is littered with all kinds of heat signatures. All of them belong to the werewolf, but, just like that damn stench, the tracks are all constant with the same heat patterns. I can tell you one thing, though."

"What's that?" Devon asked.

Kallahan lost the smile and raised his M16. He cocked it, and turned back to the theater. It was a long minute, with a long look, and a low sigh. "This is werewolf central, and I can't tell if the son of a bitch is home or not."

Devon tried to swallow the new lump in his throat, but it wouldn't move. It was a fist sized jawbreaker he could gag on at anytime. Still, he rose his M16, cocked it, and prayed the silver tipped bullets would be enough to take the beast down.

Kallahan started walking. Devon followed.

Kenzi woke up. She'd had different fitful periods of sleep, and locked inside the theater's green room, or rather, the werewolf's cage. There was no way to tell if it was night or day, an time had merged together. The werewolf had taken her cell phone.

_She_ wasn't here right now. _She_ had mumbled some lame excuse (Kenzi gave her the "I'm your prisoner dumbass, why are you telling me anything?" look), before unchaining the door, going through, and chaining it back on the other side.

Kenzi sighed, laying back on the couch and staring at the ceiling, and the one, crudely put together overhead light. It drifted like a pendulum; the motion was hypnotic. Kenzi watched the light and her arms started to burn and itch. She started to scratch, then remembered Lauren telling her not too. She could reopen the wounds and that would be dangerous enough, but reopening the wounds with a werewolf around. To Kenzi, that seemed like a ringing dinner bell.

There was a half remembered dream, or a hypnotic moment like now. She coul see the werewolf in shutter clicks, eyes flickering and just enough light got in. In that dream-like state the werewolf was removing the wrapping, cleaning the long capital T slash marks Kenzi made, (there was something else in this moment, but the flashes were too fast) an redressing the wounds. Kenzi tried to say something to her dream nurse/executioner. Her mouth wouldn't move, and her throat made no sound.

The dream vanished into the pits of oblivion, from whence it came.

She still watched the light fixture, letting it hypnotize her. It opened all her senses to a supernatural level. The room pulsed with the werewolf's power, and Kenzi felt it flowing into her through the hypnotic light bulb. Knowledge was the best of these, the knowledge that Dyson wasn't dead.

Her heart soared with relief, love, and the hope of freedom. Dyson would come for her. Kenzi smiled at the light. Dyson would save her.

She tightened her grip on the silver letter opener.

Gun shots went off in the (day/night) and jerked Kenzi up out of her hypnotic half sleep. She sat up on the couch and looked towards the door. The gunshots came again. The rat-a-tat-tat of a fully automatic rifle. The werewolf howled.

They were in the theater!

The game was a foot. The werewolf smiled as she looked down from the rafters at another armed team entering her domain.

_Why do you keep the girl alive?_

It wasn't nearly as large as the last team, she hadn't even finished eating the rest of the last team and their flesh was decaying. The new armed team was a blessing, fresh meat.

_Why do you keep the girl alive?, the_

The team moved, turning on flashlights and sweeping the lobby with the lights. They inspected one of the dark Fae corpses. One of them, the big black one, threw up at the sight.

_Do you think keeping her alive will bring Dyson back from the dead?_

The werewolf followed them as soundless as a ghost when they made their way into the theater proper. They found another dinner pile, and the smell coming off the fresh meat was filled with fear.

She smiled, a crooked grin filled with fangs and spittle. Fear was the best flavoring, next to innocence of course, and the thought was almost powerful enough for the werewolf to steal complete control.

_Do you think keeping her alive will protect your own humanity?_

Kallahan and Devon, fining nothing but the steaming remains of Evony and her party, moved down the stairs behind the stage. They led to Hell.

Kallahan found a macabre sense of humor build up in him. He couldn't let it go, couldn't laugh. If he did, panic would break free, and that little touch of humor would drop him to the ground and ensure death. It wouldn't be a peaceful death. He swallowed the humor as best he could.

Devon moved behind Kallahan, his heart rate climbing, which is strange for a person who's technically dead, and his breathing became more and more rapid as they followed the stairs. Followed them to Hell. Followed them into a thick envelope of darkness where monsters don't need to hide.

Thirty feet down the hall, and passing two doors—one room filled with lighting equipment, the other almost, a pile of trash, mainly ravioli cans, occupied one corner—Kallahan grew weary of the absolute darkness. The flashlights just didn't cut it.

"Kill your light," Kallahan said, as he turned his off and took off his sunglasses.

"But…" Devon said, heart still pounding in his chest.

"Still afraid of the dark?" Kallahan said, smiling. The cross like lids opened and the eye stalk blossoms came and rolled up. Kallahan didn't open them, though. Devon's flashlight would blind him. "I thought vampires were supposed to be big bad night stalkers, seducing their prey, then taking them back to the house for a quickie and a midnight snack."

"Yeah," Devon said. "We do all that shit, but it's been centuries upon centuries since we lived in caves, and we've grown very accustomed to the light."

Devon shook his head and turned the light off.

Kallahan gave it a minute, waiting for the heat of the light to fade, then opened the blossoms. Oh, how he wished to the gods of every pantheon he hadn't done that.

Devon was a shadow in Kallahan's vision, the cool levels of blood running through his veins, no matter how fast Devon's heart was beating or how hard he was breathing. The whole being dead thing (even if it was just a technicality) cooled the flesh on his bones.

But, there was another shape behind Devon. This one was white hot, and stood almost as tall as the ceiling. Kallahan didn't need light to know the beasts jaws were thick with drool, and its eyes were locked on Devon. The werewolf raised one branch sized arm, and…

"Devon," Kallahan shouted and pushed forward, trying to cover the six feet between him and his partner. The werewolf was faster. It clamped onto Devon's head with its three fingered, and a thumb, hand and continued the swing. Devon slammed into the wall. A thick wet crack sounded out much louder than the destruction of the plaster.

"Oh, gods," Kallahan said. He started backing away, and flicked his blossoms closed and open again. The briars stuck out, but Kallahan didn't want to get close enough to use them. He took aim with the M16, and fired a three second burst. Wounds popped open on the werewolf's thigh and it grimace, stumbling forward a step.

Confidence built in Kallahan. The silver tipped bullets worked. He could kill the werewolf right now. He really could.

But…

In the time those thoughts formed, the werewolf was on him. It snatched the M16 out of Kallahan's hand, taking some of his hand with it, then squeeze the gun crushing it like a pop can. Fear, absolute unyielding fear, no, terror, no, there wasn't a word to describe the height of this new emotion, and that emotion overwhelmed any other sensation.

All of Kallahan's blossoms were locked on the werewolf, but he caught movement out of the corner of his far left eye stalk blossom. A cool shadow moving, slowly at first, then with more confidence.

An M16 shot over the werewolf. The wolf watched it, wondered, and took too long to try and grab hold of it. Kallahan threw himself back, and caught the automatic with his good hand.

The shadow moved further still. It leapt up, onto the werewolf's back. One ebon colored hand grabbed the monster's right ear; the other took hold of a clump of fur on the shoulder. Devon's needle-like fangs flashed in the darkness as he buried them in the werewolf's neck.

The werewolf howled, loud enough to wake the dinosaurs' great bones and make them live again.

Kallahan aimed a killing shot, squeezed for a three round burst, and the werewolf did the impossible. It jerked to the side, avoiding the bullets and riving Devon into the wall again. It didn't stop moving though. This pain, greater than anything it had ever face threw it into fight or flight mode.

The werewolf bounce from the wall and bull rushed Kallahan. He tried another burst, but the werewolf was on top of him. The werewolf's arm worked, bringing the gun over its shoulder. The pounds per square inch had been applied, and the M16's three second burst took Devon in the face, blowing off the top of his head.

Kallahan's eyes widened, but the werewolf gave him no time to react. So long as the vampire's fangs remained in its skin, dipped in its blood, it could regenerate even from such a grievous wound. The werewolf reversed its grip on Kallahan's arm and jerked. The arm tore free, and slow moving sap spilled from the wound. The shoulder was jagged with splinters and briars. A living plant Fae, and the werewolf didn't care.

It dropped the arm and took hold of Kallahan's head. The sound of branches snapping and trees falling accompanied the removal of Kallahan's head.

The werewolf dropped the head and the body, then reached around for the vampire. It jerked, and the fangs tore a mouthful of flesh away from the werewolf's shoulder.

The blonde girl came out of the werewolf, shrinking down to her human size while still holding the vampire. She could feel pain, like a blazing unholy fire in her head, all throughout her veins, and crawling over her skin. She bled from the bullet holes in her leg, and from the bite on her shoulder.

She couldn't understand why they weren't healing. The werewolf was making a terrible howling mewling sound in the back of her consciousness. The rest of her demanded sleep. The injuries would heal during sleep.

_What about Kenzi?_

No one, not even the insanity answered her.

The vampire made its own groaning noise, and the sound of bone moving and cracking like the earth stabbed her ears for another wonderful layer of pain.

She stopped it though, with two quick motions: her hand driving into his chest, and drawing his heart out. Without an engine to move the blood there could be no regeneration.

The blonde girl gave the vampire a good shove, and dropped the heart on the ground.

For a second she had considered eating it. The thought made her sick to her stomach.

Kenzi hear the chain, locks, and keys rattle as the blonde girl pulled the door open. She stumbled in, blood covering one side and the opposite leg.

She shut the door behind her, chained and locked it, then started to shamble across the room towards her own couch. She didn't even look at Kenzi.

Kenzi's first reaction was to get up and help. She stopped it. She didn't owe this monster anything. Then she did get up and help her across the room. The blonde girl looked at Kenzi with glazed eyes somewhere between a dark blue and the yellowish-gold of the werewolf. She in't even seem to register that Kenzi was helping her.

They made it to her couch, and Kenzi helped her into it. She went so far as taking the flesh colored paws, and putting them up on the couch. Kenzi got a blanket and covered the blonde girl with it.

Kenzi started back across the room and stopped midway. She felt the letter opener rubbing against her skin in a borrowed pair of boots (she also selected a snarky tee-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans form the blonde girl's pile of now useless clothing). She drew the letter opener and turned around.

The blonde girl was asleep, severely wounded, and in a mental state where she couldn't even tell what was going on around her. Easy prey.

She held onto the letter opener, holding the grip so tight her knuckles turned white.

She could end it. Right now she could end the hell this woman, this monster, created for Dyson, and for those that loved him.

She could end it.

Then she thought of the girl in the picture. The blonde girl from long ago. She looked happy back then, and that little blonde girl was still in there somewhere. She might be lost forever, if Trick was right, but if Trick was right, but there was hope. There was always hope.

Kenzi slid the letter opener back into her boot. She didn't plan on using it. Ever.

A/N: Once again, I almost forgot. Someone :cough Jenna cough: who shall remain nameless is supposed to be reminding me about this stuff.

Anyway, I have good news! It's a suppository…

Wait that's not it. Hmm. What was I going to say? Was it something about my blog? My rectum? I really can't remember… Oh. Wait. I know.

I FINISHED IN THE MORNING LIGHT!

Only five chapters remain, not including this one.

What's going to happen?

Is the Werewolf going to die?

Is it going to take Kenzi and Dyson down with it?

I know what's going to happen.

It's a wild ride, and you'll just have to hold on tight.


	26. Gone Missing

Chapter 25: Gone Missing

Trick had been released, still with a head full of bandages and an eye wound that hadn't quite stopped bleeding yet. Lauren wanted to give him a few prescriptions to help with the pain and what not, but Fae homeopathic remedies are often more effective than human drugs, in the fact that they typically cure the disease instead of treating its symptoms in an effort to create customers and profit.

Dyson, on the other hand, hadn't been quite so lucky. The strength in his legs was returning, and his spirit had quit aching after it had nearly been pick-pocketed. And, Dyson was still full of questions, and nobody had answers to them.

Death?

The werewolf and its connection to Jessa Mae?

Kenzi?

The last question stood out as the most important. Was she alive? Was she okay? What had the werewolf done, and where had it taken her?

Surely the werewolf wouldn't return to the theater, not after its security was breached by the dark Fae. Even the most basic of instincts, at the werewolf's finally transformation into full savagery and insanity, would tell the werewolf to find a new den.

Unless…

No, that particular idea was wild. The werewolf, it must have been suffering from the curse for months given the destruction it's rained down upon the city. And, with the exception of Kenzi, it had stopped targeting Dyson's ex-girlfriends and one-night-stands. That might also be because of the buffet Dyson sent its way.

He shook his head as he came out of a half doze. A headache had formed in the last two hours, and his hands clamping tight over his temples did nothing to alleviate the pain. He'd refused the aspirin Lauren had offered. There was a wonderful cocktail of drugs in his system as it was. He didn't want to know what the shake mix might be like with aspirin on top of it.

"Units eleven through thirty have reported no contact," Lauren said. Dyson could imagine it; she would be leaning back in her chair an looking up at the Ash. For some reason, Lauren had been put in charge of the search operations. The death of the Chief of Security might serve as a good reason. "Not with team eight and not with the werewolf."

"What about the other teams?" The thick baritone of the Ash rolled from his lips.

"Teams one through seven have been unable to make a report as they are in the dark Fae part of the city." Lauren said. She sat up in her chair (Dyson could hear the creek) and started typing on her computer. The screen changed, and Dyson could imagine a map of the city spreading out over the screen. There would be little red dots showing the location of every team. Then, with a couple more taps on the keyboard, the map would zoom in on the dark Fae territory. The red blips showed the teams, and the red circle around the blip showed the order for radio silence.

The system, while seemingly simple, was something Dyson was familiar with, and it was one he'd broken more computers with than any other piece of software he'd interacted with.

Dyson still left his eyes close, watching the interaction as he could imagine it, in his head.

"Nine and Ten," Lauren continued, "are searching the last known location of team Eight."

"Where's that?" the Ash's baritone once again.

"A one mile circle around the Pictiűrlann School of Performing arts." Lauren said. "Most of its rubble now, but the school's theater still stands. And, if the reports we recovered from the dark Fae are to be believe, this was the location of the Morrigan's team. All members of that team are lost and considered dead."

"Yes," the Ash said, probably nodding and holding his chin. "This was also the location Dyson provide when he wanted to put together a hunting party. Though we've seen how successful the Morrigan's part was."

"To be frank, sir," Lauren said. "We are better equipped to deal with the werewolf."

"That might be, but I will shed no more blood over this. Assume Team Eight lost to the werewolf and recall the hunting teams."

The Ash's footsteps, his hard soled shoes echoing against the tile. There was a stop, and a small scraping sound. "And, Lauren, do not defy me. The succubus is dead, her little rag tag group of vigilantes are leaderless. Let the wolf run its course, it will leave the city before too long."

"Yes," Lauren said and hesitated. "Sir."

Dyson could see the Ash eyeing her, looking for the lie on her face. He found none, and turned away.

Two hours later Dyson managed to fall into a fitful sleep. He saw the werewolf, and xhot it through the heart, ending its reign of terror. But, as the magic fled its body, and the transformation left it as a little girl.

A blonde little girl who had fallen and skinned her knee. She was crying, and two women seemed to come and help her.

One, the one with her back turned to Dyson had long and glorious blonde hair with streaks of red shot through it. Dyson remembered teasing her, telling her she should be a model, or an actress, or part of a profession where her hair would make her a fortune. She had teased him back, maybe even seriously, that all she wanted to be in life was Mrs. Jessa Mae Thornwood.

The other was Kenzi, and the little girl was much bigger and deformed by the plague that coursed through her veins. She was injured, loosing copious amounts of blood, and Kenzi was tending to her like a nurse. Patching the bite mark on her neck and shoulder, and pulling silver tipped bullets out of her thigh.

"Dyson."

He hear his name boom through the dream like someone hitting a gong, and still Dyson watched. Both women turned away from him, and each held their own version of the little blonde girl. Each of those blonde girls seemed close to death. It tore at Dyson's heart. He started to move forward, but each step he took made them move farther and farther away. He was all out running before he knew it, and they were getting further and further away.

He had to know who the little blonde girl was. It was absolutely imperative.

"Dyson!"

The gong rang again, and the sharp stabbing pain in his ears dropped him to his knees. He held his hands over his ears, trying and trying to stop the ice pick running through his ear drums.

And, it went away, quickly as it came, when two hands dropped onto his shoulders. He could feel the one on the right, three fingers with claws dug into his pectoral muscle, and a thumb scraping its claw against the shoulder blade. The hand on the left was cold, chilling Dyson's shoulder, not a wisp of cold air, but more like the cold of the grave, and the ghastly long fingers slipped through his shoulder like he was made of air.

The harbingers of things to come. The werewolf would be the weapon of his death, and Death would personally claim his soul with no explanation as to why it was such an important piece of the universe and the world as a whole.

"Dyson," the voice said a third time. It was no longer a gong, just Lauren prodding him back to consciousness. He blinked twice and focused on her.

"What?" Dyson said, bad dream or not sleep was still sleep.

"It's time to go," she said yanking back the bedcovers, and throwing his cloths, now almost a week old, at him. He tottered for a minute as he started to dress. Lauren move to the edge of the curtain and peeked around the corner. She looked back at Dyson, and caught him with his pants down.

"Oh, my," Lauren said, a little blush rising to her cheeks. "I might go bi if I got to play with that."

Dyson grunted and pulled his pants up, buttoned, zipped, and tucked the tail of his shirt in. "My gun?"

"I got as much as I could," Lauren said. She shrugged and Dyson groaned.

He stumbled, still not quite steady on his feet. Shook his head and sighed. "I'll never beat that monster this way."

"Then you'll be happy I came up with a solution," Lauren said. She handed him two syringes: one full of a pink liquid, the other a blood red fluid. He looked up at her, questioning the "help".

"One is a steroid that should put you almost all the way to normal," Lauren held up another pink syringe. "This one you get two doses of. One right now, to help you escape, and another to help you get across the city."

She jabbed him in the arm with the second pink syringe and drove the plunger all the way down. Dyson jerked away, and the injection site burned like hell. He was snarling, his fangs growing out, his face elongating just a little, and his fingernails turned to claws. Dyson pause in the middle of attack mode, and looked at himself.

"I know you've been trying to shift every two hours since you came back to us. I had a telepath force you to change, knowing that pain would immediately be transferred to the wolf, and you would shift back to normal as soon as the pain hit the wolf's system."

"And, you know that how?" Dyson asked, relaxing his posture, even with the joy of a partial shift running through him. It seemed to be a new lease on life.

"Animorphs," Lauren answered. "K.A. Applegate was a hawk shifter, and she wanted to share the wonders of the animal and shifter world, be they human or Fae." She shrugged. "That, and I loved those books growing up."

Dyson couldn't tell if he should nod or shake his head.

"What's in the third?"

"A Hail Mary," Lauren said. "It's the blood gathered from the werewolf when it attacked. It's rumored that if a Fae uses it they will gain the strength and speed of the werewolf. There's a price to that as well."

"Tell me," Dyson said.

"Some of those stories end with the Fae going mad and attacking and destroying the life they once had and cared about, at least until they were put down with silver bullets." Lauren said. Her face paled at the thought of the next price.

"What's the other one?" Dyson asked. He locked his eyes on Lauren's, and began to force his will power into hers. However, years of working with the Ash and other Fae, she'd built up a resistance to this power. The glamour, a mystical weapon Hollywood attributed to vampires only.

Lauren shook her head. "Dyson, I'm going to tell you, you have a right to know. Now, please stop squeezing my head like you're trying to juice it."

It was Dyson's turn to be embarrassed, and he praised all that is holy that he hadn't had the chance to shave in the last four days. And, he'd been to the point where he needed to shave before the encounter with the werewolf. He was thankful she could see his beet red cheeks.

"The other rumored ending is probably worse than the first," Lauren said, she closed her eyes to compose herself, and looked back up. "And, it will probably be even worse considering the type of Fae you are."

"Just get it out," Dyson said.

"Those that didn't go crazy," Lauren said, her voice thick and heavy with fear. Dyson could smell it all over her. "Those that didn't go crazy became werewolves."

Dyson nodded, and looked back down at the crimson filled syringe. It was heavier now. Threatening. He put it in his jacket pocket with the other syringe, and looked back at Lauren.

Now she was holding something else out to him.

"You keep giving me gifts, and I might think you were the werewolf," Dyson said. He meant it to sound light, but it fell into dead air.

Dyson took the rectangular gift from Lauren and took one short look at it. It was the clip from a Sig Saur P210 pistol (which just happens to be the standard issue guns for the Ash's guards). The eight round clip was full with silver loads.

"I'm sure these weren't much help to the Morrigan's group, or to Team Eight."

"You overheard that?"

"Yeah," Dyson said, "but now's not the time to worry about it. The werewolf already ha dinner and now it would be sleeping off the gorge."

Easy prey.

Dyson walked down the halls of the Ash's compound as he had a million times. He was confident, and his air told people this was his building an get the fuck out.

He hadn't seen a guard throughout the trip, and was starting to worry inside his somewhat bulletproof will. The clip in his pocket was useless without a gun.

He reached the front gate and found two of those he was looking for. Dyson flashed them a smile as he approached. He loosened his body, relaxing his muscles; preparing for the fight.

"Mr. Thornwood," one of the guards asked, the closest one. It's good to see you up and about. But, the Ash gave explicit orders that you're not to be allowed outside the compound."

Dyson nodded, and flexed his fists behind his back. He looked at the guard closest to him.

"You'll just have to tell them I hit you," Dyson said, he flashed a devil's grin. The guard was dumb enough to look over at his partner to see if it was a joke. Dyson caught him with a hard left as he turned back.

The guard's eyes rolled in his head, a K. O. blow, and the guard fell in the direction of Dyson's punch. His pistol was wide open, and Dyson's hands were gunslinger fast. He whipped his left out caught the holster, unhooked the catch, and drew.

Guard number one hit the ground. The other had his Sig Saur halfway out of his holster. Dyson aimed and unlocked the safety in the same instance. The guard realized he lost. Dyson's finger went down, the gun barked, and a golf ball sized hole opened up in the guard's thigh. He fell, and Dyson pistol-whipped him. He dropped to the ground just as cold as his partner.

A frown played over Dyson's face. They were light Fae, just following the Ash's orders. And, that's why Dyson hadn't killed them.

He looked around, expecting company from the gunshot. Still he stood there long enough to eject the clip, and drop it on the guard it belonged too (there was a little oof, and the guard curled some around his gut), then slammed the clip with the silver bullets home.

Dyson nodded. It was time to save Kenzi.

Time to kill a werewolf.


	27. A Little Humanity Maybe

Chapter 26: A Little Humanity…Maybe

Kenzi sat and watched the blonde girl, the werewolf, for one maybe two days. She had been still that entire time not rolling over or snoring, and Kenzi had thought she was dead. But, there was a very slow rise and fall to her chest.

She also saw other amazing things. Kenzi watched the blonde girl's feet return to normal, and still sporting the light blue toenails she'd had before all of this started. Then the wolf's paws returned, and it was the same way with her hands.

Though she wasn't going to check, Kenzi was sure her eyes and teeth had gone through the same transition. It was curious, but that curiosity could be strangely confirmed.

It seemed that something in her last fight with the Fae had knocked the werewolf's hold on her. Something they did, whether it was the bite on her shoulder and neck, or did the gunshot wounds on her thigh. Kenzi shook her head, and looked around the room again.

It was your basic blasé lounge with a mini-bar (empty) tucked into one corner, and a television that someone had put their foot through. A very riveting place.

She thought about the letter opener, and pushed the thought away as quickly as it came.

She thought about the door, but the chains bound the handles too tight for her to try to push them open and squeeze through.

And…

And then what?

Nothing.

Kenzi had been unconscious when she arrived here, and she wasn't even sure what type of building she was in. It seemed to be a theater, considering the green room. But, TV stations had green rooms for their anchors, guests, and what not. The list of possibilities was almost endless.

Then there was the city. She'd lived here for the better part of her life, after the runaway, and knew just about every nook and cranny in the light Fae half. Even before Bo had come along, and when Kenzi had no knowledge of the Fae, she'd always stuck to the light side.

She shook her head again, and groaned. She dropped down into a crouch, clamped her hands over her eyes, and groaned again.

This time there was an answering groan.

The blood froze in Kenzi's veins. The werewolf.

_Am I going to be breakfast?_

The werewolf groaned again. Kenzi still wasn't able to get the ditzy movie chick out of her head, and found herself getting up an checking on the werewolf.

Just a light touch was all it took, and there was a three fingered hand/paw wrapped around her wrist. The grip in it was that of a vice, and Kenzi was about to kiss her arm goodbye. The blonde girl turned her head, and her face was that of the werewolf. The yellowish-gold eyes bored into her. Then they lightened to a different color, a haunting blue that cut down to her soul, and Kenzi knew.

"You're…" Kenzi stuttered. The hand/paw around her wrist relaxed and fell away, and the girl sat up as best she could. She cast her eyes down to the floor.

"You're Dyson's daughter…" Kenzi said, and was unable to say anymore than that. She knew it was true, and the horrible fact of it froze her vocal chords. She moved her lips, trying to form words, nothing would come.

"That's what my mother told me," the blonde girl said. "She gave me his surname."

"What's your name?" Kenzi asked.

"Terra, Terra Thornwood." Terra said. "And, now you'll ask why I did it. Why all the murders, and the terror. And, I'll tell you I don't know. I was…compelled."

"Compelled?" Kenzi said. She shook her head, and turned away from Terra. She paced, back over to her couch and sat down, covering her face with her hands. "You were compelled to murder innocent women. You killed Bo, and you desecrated her putting her head in the middle of some alter, with your grandmother as the center piece! You were compelled to do all that?"

Kenzi was on her feet and shouting. Her face was red. Her eyes shot through with bloody lightning bolts. She shook her head. "You killed Hale. You terrified me enough for me to try and kill myself. I've never sunk that low. I never thought that death would be preferable to life."

She sat back down again, crying with a pain that reached deep into her soul. Her arms were itching again.

"I have clarity now," Terra said, her voice small and filled with unshed tears. She shook her head. "I know it's insane, but this monster inside me has consumed everything. I'm amazed I can think rationally right now."

Terra stood up now, and walked across the room. She looked down at Kenzi. She wanted to comfort this poor human, to give comfort the way a mother would hold her child.

Only, Jessa Mae's comfort to her child had been a slap to the face, one that opened three slashes on her face. Then Jessa Mae filled a shotgun with as much silver as she could, and blew her heart out of her back. Terra shuddered and felt her face. The scars were gone, but it was then that she contracted this curse.

"I don't know how much longer I have," Terra said.

Kenzi stopped crying and looked up at Terra. "What?"

"The monster is coming back." She sat down on the floor and looked up at Kenzi. Her haunted blue eyes, eyes that tugged at Kenzi's heart, were changing again. The wolf's eyes were coming back.

Terra took a deep breath and looked at Kenzi. The tears were there in Terra's eyes. The tears meant to be shed for all the wrong she'd done.

"Fight it," Kenzi said. She dropped to the ground and grabbed Terra's shoulders. She looked into Terra's half and half eyes, a monster and a child in the same instant. "Fight it with every fiber of your being. You can beat it. You can beat it."

"You should have killed me when you had the chance." This voice belonged to the werewolf. A low rumble deep in the throat accessing vocal chords that grew in the first transformation. "You should have killed me while you had the chance."

Terra, the werewolf reborn, clamped her hands on Kenzi's shoulders, and hoisted her up into the air as she stood. The blue in her eyes faded in an out, but the werewolf was in control now. The vice like grips, or rather the Jaws of Life, powered paws were squeezing and squeezing into her shoulders. Kenzi didn't think she could take much more.

The grip loosened and Kenzi dropped.

"Run!" Terra said. The beast came back, not transforming not yet. Terra wouldn't let it. Still it charged Kenzi. She touched and rolled under the werewolf's attack. And, she made a split second decision.

Leaving Terra like this was a curse. Kenzi should have known it. Should have ended it when she had the chance, just like the boast told her. But, now she would fix that mistake.

The beast spun as Kenzi drew the letter opener from her boot. The wolf charged again, trumpeting a terrible howl. Kenzi tucked and rolled again, but stopped cold just past the beast. She spun, and held her arm ready to strike.

The letter opener pierced the werewolf's flesh a second time, and its new howl was one filled with pain. Kenzi yanked the blade out, and a backhand sent her tumbling. She landed against the door's the chains trapping her here. A plan.

Kenzi stood, hold the letter opener out. It was stained red with the werewolf's blood.

The werewolf snarled. Hair was starting to grow over the lithe almost elvish form. Her face was pressing out to become a snout, and the blue eyes came back once more. She moved her lips making out words that were impossible to understand. But, Kenzi knew what they were.

"Tell my daddy to kill me."

Tears formed in Kenzi's eyes, and the fully transformed werewolf charged. There was no sign that Terra was a part of it.

Tuck and roll one more time, and the weight of the beast slammed through the doors, shredding the chain and tearing both of them off their hinges.

One glance told Kenzi the werewolf had gone through the wall across the hall too.

She had one second, maybe, to find what she needed.

The cell phone.

A/N: Just thought that I would point out that I have finished _In the Morning Light_. Don't know if I've mentioned that on here or not. Yup. The cycle has almost ended. Who will live and who will die? You'll find out… in three chapters.

Ryan


	28. A Phone Call

Chapter 27: A Phone Call

Kenzi's hands flew; throwing clothes to the side, soda cans, and piles of dried vomit. In a sick and disgusting way the room was a story book. It showed Terra's transformation into the monster. The pretty preppy clothes, then clothes to hide her changes, the food, as she went from ravioli to not being able to stomach anything that wasn't humanoid and breathing.

Still, time was running out.

The monster howled. Plaster and concrete shattered as it pulled itself up out of the rubble. It was maybe a room, maybe two, away from the green room. Kenzi wasn't counting on it.

Her eyes jumped around the room; one more time.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

The trench coat. Kenzi riveted on it. It was the jacket Terra was wearing at the café. It reeked of fetid meat, and blood stained half of it. Blood that Kenzi was sure wasn't Terra's. A preppy girl might have hesitated, Kenzi almost hesitated, but the sound of one of the former green room doors getting thrown down the hallway eliminated that hesitation.

Pocket one: teeth. Pocket two: a severed hand. Pocket three: plastic, rectangle, with a seam, and a hinge.

Kenzi yanked the phone out of the pocket. And, spun on her heels. She flipped the phone open and looked up. She almost dropped the phone.

The werewolf was standing in the doorway. A nine feet tall, thousand pound wall of muscle, claws, and teeth stood between Kenzi and her freedom. They stood and stared at one another, waiting for the other to move. The werewolf clicked its claws on the floor, clicked again, dug in, and launched itself at Kenzi.

Dyson let the thrum of his motorcycle go silent. The motorcycle was a beast, a man-made monster that destroyed as many lives in as many ways as the werewolf. But, the motorcycle wasn't a sentient killer.

He swung his leg up and over, and took off his black leather jacket. He dropped it onto the motorcycle. He looked at the broken ground, the marquee, and the busted glass doors beyond. A chill passed over him that was anything but natural.

The syringe came out, and he drove its wicked needle deep into his flesh. The pink liquid fled its plastic prison, and pain flared in Dyson's arm. Just the pain of the injection, and the spread of the steroid through his blood. He dropped the syringe to the ground and saw the wide array of other syringes, glass, plastic, half full, all of them used for one drug or another.

"Age and decay," Dyson said. He looked up at the theater and sighed. "Age and decay, the best hiding place for those who don't want to be seen. You're in there, aren't you Jessa Mae?"

Dyson pulled the third syringe out. He watched the crimson liquid inside, expecting it to do something, anything.

There was nothing.

It was a syringe, plastic with a needle and a plastic sleeve covering that needle. There was a plunger with a black rubber bit inside the syringe. Dyson wasn't sure what that was for. Maybe it had something to do with friction, or stopping the plunger from coming all the way out.

And, it was strange, thinking about how the simple device worked instead of what it held. The werewolf blood. It could heighten his powers to that of a werewolf, but at what cost?

Insanity?

Life as a werewolf?

Or would it just kill him? A wolf shifter was almost a werewolf. They were based on the same principles, made of the same elements, and governed by the wolf spirit. Wolf shifters should really look at werewolves as a brother or, at the very least, a cousin. But, there was too much bad blood, and to little control. The werewolves were a curse.

Dyson looked up at the theater and shuttered.

Was he willing to become one?

Tuck and roll didn't work this time. The werewolf swept low, expecting the move, and caught Kenzi by the throat. The werewolf pounded her into the wall, the plaster cratering around her, and the wind rushed out of her lungs.

Kenzi gasped for air as she let the phone and the letter opener fall. Her hands came up to the paw holding her. She tried to pry the fingers off, to no avail.

"Terra," Kenzi said. Her voice was choked, and little air was getting in. The werewolf drew up closer to Kenzi. Its muzzle and fetid breath were inches away from her. A small moment of a self defense class Kenzi saw recurred to her. A woman had been in a similar situation.

"I'm sorry Terra," Kenzi said. She jabbed forward with her thumb and drove it into the werewolf's eye. She dug as the werewolf began to howl, and, to her horror, Kenzi felt as the eye gave way and her thumb plunged into the socket.

The werewolf reeled back from Kenzi, dropping her, coughing, to the ground. Its howl was a great mournful echo filled with unimaginable pain. Its body shook the floor as it landed, and the tiles cried as its claws tried to drag it from the pain.

Kenzi coughed twice more, and great joyous air fought through. She almost hyperventilated, but she slowed her breathing.

Now, she absolutely had to get moving before the werewolf found its senses.

She grabbed the phone, and the letter opener, and started for the door. She made it a foot and found the eye staring up at her. It was half blue half yellowish-gold, but the blue was winning.

Kenzi looked at the werewolf one more time.

"Death will give you back your humanity," Kenzi said.

The werewolf turned at the sound of her voice, and locked its remaining eye on her. That eye was filled with the penultimate amount of hatred. It promised pain.

A short breath was all she had time for. Then the race began.

Dyson stepped over the marquee and through the half open door. The stench of the werewolf had overcome the city, but it was beyond anything Dyson had experienced in here. He inhaled and it almost killed him. He could smell the werewolf, Kenzi, what the werewolf had for breakfast, and what the werewolf had for breakfast everyday for the last six months.

He had to stop, and lean against e candy and popcorn counter. His eyes twitched once, looked away, then twitched back.

Evony was sitting there in front of the counter. Her eyes were black pits, and there was a mushroomed hole at the crown of her head. The bullet that killed her was probably lodged in the ceiling above them.

Dyson could smell her decomposing, and when he saw that the werewolf had torn her stomach and every organ down there out, he had to throw himself across the counter. He didn't usually have a weak stomach, but, well, he hadn't had anything solid to eat in four days.

He wiped his mouth with his wrist, spit, and started for the theater proper.

Then his phone rang.

Kenzi ran, her legs burning all up and down. Twice she came close to falling, and twice she wanted to throw up when she crossed the path of one of those killed by the werewolf. She didn't want to join them.

The werewolf was behind her, somewhere. She could hear its rage exploding through the halls. She could hear the walls as they gave way to the werewolf's strength.

A huge arm shot out of the wall in front of her, as the other arm tore the wall away. Kenzi ducked and the werewolf grabbed for her. There would be no hesitation this time. If the wolf caught her she would be dead.

A leg went her direction, and reacting on instinct (too scared to do anything else), she slammed the letter opener into the thigh, again. Then didn't let go as she kept running. The letter open dug through the monster's thigh like butter.

Pain!

The werewolf drove both hands down into the tile floor. It roared, and twitched its head. Kenzi was halfway down the hall and holding the phone to her ear.

_She's calling him, bringing him here._

Joy broke through the werewolf. It drove one clawed hand into the wall and propelled itself forward, running like an ape, with its injured leg.

It could smell, the fetid air was filled with its own stench, but Fae…they stuck out to werewolves.

_No, daddy,_ Terra said.

_He, he, he,_ the werewolf replied. It heard Dyson's phone ringing in the building up near where the dark Fae bitch blew her brains out.

Kenzi turned up a flight of stairs. She was shouting into the phone. The buzzing and hissing of blood, boiling as it goes through the wounded section. It cut the sound of the phone off, and what Kenzi was saying.

_The bitch first then,_ the werewolf thought, cringing from the pain the little human had caused. How much trouble could one human be?

The werewolf clamped onto the corner, and flung itself up the stairs.

"Hello?" Dyson said, and instantly his ear was full of Kenzi's voice. He couldn't make out what she was saying. Knowing she was still alive sent a wave of relief and elation all throughout his body.

But, there was a pounding echoing off the walls and through the phone. And, he could hear Kenzi too, her voice getting closer. Closer.

She shot out onto the stage and looked up towards the entrance. She stopped dead when she saw him.

That was bad.

Dyson saw the werewolf as it flew onto the stage. He knew it was going for Kenzi, and he charged.

The werewolf and Dyson both charged for Kenzi. They jumped…


	29. This Silver Knife

Chapter 28: The Silver Knife

Dyson hit the werewolf with the force of a bus. The spear drove the beast back, and away from Kenzi. She was still holding the phone to her ear when she noticed what was going on behind her. She turned and watched as Dyson pulled himself out of a pile of rubble. Bit's of brick and dust fell from his shoulders, and more of it was stuck in his hair.

His face was that of the predator, eye turned yellow, face elongated, and fangs. His fingers grew short claws instead of nails, and for a moment Kenzi thought she was looking at Terra again.

The werewolf didn't go too far. It exploded out of the rubble in a blind rush at Dyson. He caught the beast, and like a professional wrestler, he grabbed it under the arm and slung it over his head. The werewolf caught itself, then crumpled, the wound on its thigh reopening.

It yelped; Dyson gave no quarter. He lashed out and struck the beast clean across the face. His claws came out bloody, and more blood fell from the wound Kenzi gave it.

The beast yowled into the theater proper and spun away, trying to put some distance between itself and Dyson.

Dyson drew, his gun up and ready, and fired two shots. Kenzi could hear the wolf's skin sizzle and its bones break as the bullets went tough it.

"So much fuss," Dyson said. He shook his head, and walked a slow circle around the beast. "The Fae fear you as the ultimate predator. You've killed dozens of us, and how, a human's knife and a gun are going to be your end."

Dyson raised the gun, pointing it at the werewolf's head. His finger pulled, and the shot went wild as Kenzi hit him from the side.

Surprise took him down to his knees, and Kenzi was left straddling him in a nearly obscene position.

"What the hell?"

"You can't…" Kenzi's cry was cut out as the werewolf jerked her up off Dyson and pitched her over its shoulder. It snarled, curling its lips up and showing off every single one of its dagger shaped teeth. Dyson brought his gun up and fired. The bullet tore through the werewolf's shoulder, but whatever had made it sensitive to the pain had been extinguished. With split and broken legs it stood to its full height. With a missing eye it beamed just as much hatred down on Dyson. And, now it moved like he hadn't shot it in the shoulder.

Dyson started to fire and the gun was struck out of his grasp. The werewolf reversed its momentum, and grabbed Dyson's arm. It threw him off the stage and up through three sets of seats. He rolled in the dust and coughed.

The werewolf was on the move. Once again it was death on high, and Dyson's time was nigh. The monster jumped off the stage and started tearing through the chairs, making its way too Dyson.

He coughed again. His hand was in and out of his pocket the third syringe in tow. There were no questions now, no doubts of sanity. No fear of being a monstrosity. Only right now mattered.

Stopping this monster mattered.

He bit the plastic tip, and pulled it off the needle. His hand moved, and then his body moved. The werewolf had Dyson by the neck again, as it had in the Ash's compound. He looked it in the eye, and jammed the needle into his thigh.

A world of pure and brilliant colors exploded inside of him. His chest started heaving, his heart racing so fast he thought it was going to fly right out of his chest. His lungs worked over time.

The world went white.

Dyson found himself lying on the floor. It was cool against his face and slick to the touch. It wasn't the floor in the theater. Dyson jerked up, slid on the floor and landed on his ass.

"It's ice, Dyson," a thin voice said from behind. He'd heard the voice once before, but not like this. "You must have patients to stand, and to walk."

"Death," Dyson said. He pushed himself up, concentrating on what he was doing, even when he knew he should be alive, one werewolf fighting another.

"How do they say it? Hole in one."

"Where am I?" Dyson demanded. He'd made it up to his knees, but he started to slide.

"Calm and patient, Dyson, or you'll never stand up." Death said. Dyson thought he heard a smile in that phrase. "Here you must think about everything you do or say, or this world will punish you."

"Where am I?" Dyson said again, his voice filled with forced calm, and he managed some patients, enough so he could stand. He didn't want to try walking.

"You are in Niflheim," Death said. "In my home here in the primordial plane, a part of the World Tree."

"Why?" Dyson asked he turned slowly to look at Death. As he did he saw a pillar of ice with a young blonde girl, stripped bare, trapped in its core.

"Who?" Dyson asked.

Another smile form the man in a monk's robes. "I'm glad you asked."

He turned to face Dyson, and the devil's grin grew wider on Death's face.

"The answers you seek are one in the same." He pointed at the girl. "She is the reason you are here, and you are the reason she is here."

"The werewolf," Dyson said.

"You are much quicker than I expected," Death said. He moved across the ice, not really walking and not really floating. It was like the world moved around him instead. "She is the werewolf you have been chasing, she is the werewolf your physical body is fighting right now. She is your little angel of Death."

The greatest of the Fae touched the ice pillar in a father's caress. "She would have been such a daddy's girl."

"You?" Dyson said. "You're her father. If that's the case, why all the fuss about me, and the connection with Jessa Mae and her family?"

"And, now you prove how dense you are," Death said, shaking his head. "I could not have a child, not by a human, nor by a Fae, my touch is as lethal as Midas'. Or perhaps his is as lethal as mine. You are the girl's father. She would have been a daddy's girl loving you with all her heart and soul.

"Instead she grew up, mostly alone, tormented by her mother's madness, her grandmother's kindness, when she felt she deserved none, and now the werewolf has taken her, transforming her desire to meet you into one that kills you."

"Was…"

"Was it always like that?" Death took the words away. "No, for the first ten years of her life she was happy, your Jessa Mae was happily married, and everybody thought Terra was Mr. Jason Danforth's daughter. Faking your death was a brilliant and well carried out plan. She only hurt for a little while, Jessa Mae that is, before she found comfort in Jason's arms. But, she always knew who Terra's real father was.

"Why was it you left?" Death asked. "What tree did the Blood King send you to piss on?"

Dyson looked up at Death, his eyes finally coming away from Terra's body. He had a strange sense of joy in the knowledge he had a daughter, and was torn by the fact that he was trying to kill her. The look he gave Death was one of surprise, fear, and remorse. He could hardly remember what Trick had sent him to do.

"You don't know," Death said, a theatrical smile crossing his face. "Do you?"

"It was something in the Appalachian Mountains, a friend or a cousin…"

"Needed his help, but he couldn't go himself because of the Dahl?" Death shook his head. "You don't remember those years because the Blood King did not want you to remember those years. He didn't want you to be happy, not with a human woman, not since his own attempt at happiness had failed."

Death turned and opened a window with a twitch of an eyebrow, a window that hung in midair before Dyson. It showed Trick, sitting at the large ash desk in his private study. He had his "tools" out, and he was bent over, what Dyson could only assume, was a sheet of parchment.

The window vanished, and Dyson looked back at Death.

"Let me quote it for you," Death said, then, in a voice that mimicked Mark Hamill: "That's not true, that's impossible."

The frown returned as he looked back at Terra. "The blood king's jealousy didn't end there. He wanted to punish Jessa Mae. So, he brought you back. He let her see you, with another woman might I add, and she fell into madness. She destroyed every relationship she had. She sought out the werewolf, but the wounds the beast gave her were to grievous for her to carry out her plans."

"Terra," Dyson said. "But, she was innocent."

"In Jessa Mae's mind there were no more innocents," Death said. "Just tools. She didn't realize how long the disease would take to take hold in Terra. Jessa Mae didn't live to see this day, when the two of you would meet. But, she fed Terra her insanity, her obsession, and before she knew it, Terra split in two; the werewolf, and Terra.

"And, now, we come to the end of our tale." Death's eyebrow twitched again, and the window was back, showing the theater this time and the two werewolves fighting to the death. Kenzi watching in horror from the stage, and met with the ultimate question: Which one do I shoot?

"And, you get to play god," Death said. "Or at the very least my part in it."

"What do you mean?" Dyson asked.

"You get to pick who dies."

Kenzi held two things so tightly that here knuckles were white. She couldn't process what was going on, not as fast as it was all happening. The werewolf, Terra, had Dyson and was ready to pop his head off, then Dyson changed, and there wasn't one monster anymore. And, Kenzi was still trying to figure out which one was Dyson.

The item in her right hand was the letter opener. It seemed to pale in comparison to the weapons the werewolves were wielding; slashing claws and gnashing jaws.

The item in her left hand was the gun. A far cry better than the letter opener, if it were in the hands of a marksman like Dyson. Though the werewolves were probably the largest humanoid creatures in existence, they still weren't the broad side of a barn. And, Kenzi wasn't even sure she could hit that.

One werewolf grabbed the other, and suplexed it through a row of chairs. There was biting, the one that went through the chairs going after the other's ankles.

Slashing.

Wrestling moves.

Even a blow by blow commentator couldn't have followed their fight. And, the thing that brought a little terror to her heart, was them getting closer and closer to the stage. Kenzi backed away, but almost not soon enough. One threw the other up and over the stage, into the backstage area. It hit something hard, shattering the whole of the wall and bringing the catwalks down on top of it.

The other werewolf pulled itself up onto the stage and started for the one lying in the back. Kenzi got a good look at its face, and found it was Terra. She was beating the shit out of the Dyson werewolf, and the final blows might be coming. There was no sign of movement in the rubble.

Terra stalked forward, her good eye landed on Kenzi, and the monster spread its lips into a terrifying smile full of fangs. That smile and that look made a promise: wait your turn.

The Terra werewolf started throwing aside the rubble, searching for the Dyson werewolf, probably to tear its head from its shoulders.

Kenzi's heart began to pound. She had to do something, anything, to keep Dyson alive. Yet, her heart went out to Terra; the girl who never knew her father's love. They were both wronged by the other, but Kenzi had been wronged too. And, Dyson made that feeling go away.

"Will you kiss me if I said I love you," Kenzi said. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She put aside the gun and took hold of the letter opener with both hands.

The Terra werewolf threw aside a giant piece of catwalk and found the Dyson werewolf. It was breathing, but that breath was ragged and its limbs were twisted every which way except the right way. The werewolf's nature could repair those wounds, but not if the Terra werewolf tore his head off. It growled and flexed the muscles all up and down its arms. The Dyson werewolf looked at the Terra werewolf, then it looked at Kenzi as she started to move behind the Terra werewolf. The eyes looking at her were Dyson's and they were saying goodbye.

Tell my daddy to kill me.

A telepathic message, a plea. "I'm sorry Terra. Your daddy can't kill you." She tightened her grip on the letter opener. "But, I can."

Kenzi charged.

"Me," Dyson said. He looked at Death. "She deserves her life. Take me and give her a normal life. Take away the damned curse."

"I can only do so much," Death said. "The Norn's powers might not equal mine, but the curse demands sacrifice."

"Once," Dyson said. "Once a month, like it is in those crappy movies. Please."

"Perhaps," Death said. He looked back to the window, and a scream filled the whole of the realm of Niflheim. Death looked to the left, Dyson looked too, and the pillar of ice vanished. Terra stood and looked across the room to find Dyson. He saw her eyes for the first time, she reached out for him, and he for her. Then he saw the tip of a blade, a letter opener to be exact, sticking out of her chest, about an inch into her left breast.

"You said I could choose," Dyson said as he ran for Terra.

"Human's are wild cards," Death said. "Unpredictable."

"Knezi," Dyson said. He didn't get to catch Terra, and he only barely heard Death's response.

"She chose for you."

Kenzi charged like a rampaging rhino, the letter opener gripped tightly in both hands. She bent her knees at six feet, and jumped at three. Her body flew, and the letter opener came down right on its target. The silver blade cut through the Terra werewolf's flesh, sizzling the meat around the impact. And, Kenzi's prayer was answered, the letter opener was long enough to pierce Terra's heart.

Two reactions took place almost at once.

Pain, like a flame touched to a wick, erupted all up and down Kenzi's arms. Her only thought was the fear that she'd torn the wounds open, and that, once again, the life would be flowing out of her. She took two steps back from the Terra werewolf, and looked up in time to see the second reaction.

The skin still sizzled around the wound, and it seemed to be coming off in thick streams of smoke. Every one of the wounds inflicted on the werewolf were smoking, and damaged human flesh revealed between strands.

A cloud erupted, and Terra was falling, not the werewolf, not the girl stuck in between, but Terra, one hundred percent Terra.

Kenzi moved, ignoring the pain in her arms, and caught Terra. She lowered the girl down to the ground and wanted to look away. She didn't want to see the pain she and Dyson had inflicted on the innocent. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes.

A hand came up and brushed one of those tears from her cheek. Kenzi looked at Terra as she let her hand drop back to side.

"Don't cry for me," Terra said, coughing halfway through the first syllable. She smiled and it was a gruesome skull grin. She was still short and eye, and the slashes Dyson caused had almost flayed her cheek off; enough of it fell back to show her entire compliment of human teeth, most of which were little more than pebbles, shattered in the fight.

"You don't have…" Terra said and her chest hitched as another round of coughing wracked her body.

"Shh, shh, shh," Kenzi said. "You need to rest. We're going to get you out of here."

Terra smiled, and tried a small laugh. "I'm not going anywhere."

A tear fell from Kenzi's eyes and dropped to Terra. It landed on her breast, and rolled down to where the letter opener poked out. Kenzi stared at it, covered in blood, and her own blood ran cold.

The Dyson werewolf was moving. Its limbs were stitching themselves back together. The rubble shifted around it, and the monster stood. Drool dripped from its lips, and a low snarl filled its throat. It took three steps towards the pair.

Terra tried to get up, and Kenzi held onto her, even trying to shield Dyson's daughter from Dyson.

The unthinkable happened, and Dyson emerged from another diesel colored cloud. He looked down at Kenzi and Terra, his face was wracked with pain.

"Dyson?" Kenzi asked and he nodded as he knelt. "This is Terra, your daughter."

Again he nodded, and caressed her unharmed cheek, tears stood out in his eyes.

"Hi, baby girl," Dyson said. Kenzi shifted just a little and Terra was in Dyson's arms. "I'm so, I'm so fucking sorry I wasn't there."

His heart was breaking and one could hear it in his voice.

"I wasn't there," Dyson said again. "I wasn't there."

"But, you're here now," Terra said. She ran her hand through Dyson's beard. "You're here now. Tell me you love me."

"I love you, little girl," Dyson said. "I should have…"

"Shh," Terra said, and touched one finger to his lips. "There are a lot of things that could have happened. But, this is what's happening. And, I just want you to hold me now."

"Ok," Dyson said. He couldn't help it. The tears came, dropping and collecting on Terra's chest. She smiled up at him, though he didn't deserve it. Her eyes were filled with a love he didn't deserve.

Kenzi was across from him, looking down at her hands. Hands, she knew, were covered in the blood of one victim.

"He's here, daddy," Terra said. And, all he could do was nod. "Don't blame Kenzi. She's my friend, and she did what I couldn't do. She saved me."

"I won't," Dyson said, a lump the size of a baseball stuck in his throat. "I would never blame her."

Terra nodded, and looked away from Dyson, into the air behind him. He knew what, rather who, was standing there.

She looked over at Kenzi, some strength returning to her.

"Don't cry for me," Terra said, and smiled her gruesome smile. "You did the right thing. Just promise me you'll take care of my Daddy."

"I promise," Kenzi said, her voice cracking as the tears tried to come out.

Terra looked back at Dyson, and her smile remained as she locked her haunted blue eyes with his. "Thank you for saving me." She reached up with her hand and ran it through his beard again. "You're looking scruffy. You really need to…"

Terra's chest hitched one final time and her body went limp. Dyson held her closer now, with no fear of hurting her. And, the sobs began both from Kenzi and from Dyson.

A hand, ethereal and comforting fell on Dyson's shoulder.

"I love you, Daddy."

Terra whispered her final message to Dyson, and then he knew she was gone.

Dyson nodded, and picked Terra up, carrying her, bridal style, over to where Kenzi was sitting. He laid Terra down and sat down beside Kenzi. He took in a great breath, and sighed, wishing for a better ending for his little girl. Wishing he could take back those years, or at least strangle Trick for taking them away.

Kenzi looked at Terra, then at Dyson. She scooted over, just a little bit, and, with a comforting hand she turned his face to hers.

"Would you kiss me if I said I love you?"


	30. Epilogue

Epilogue

The fire burnt into the night, each of the tongues licking up and over the branches, twigs, and Terra. This was the safest thing for her, Dyson had decided. The Fae, especially the dark Fae, would want to take retribution now that there was no threat to come from her. They would tear her body apart, put her head on a pike, and feed the rest of her to whatever wild dogs they could conjure up. Here in the forest and on the pyre, she was allowed some dignity in death. Kenzi had managed to find a nice dress for her in the green room. Dyson had done some doctoring on her face, stitching it back together as best he could. That task was beyond difficult for him, his hands had trembled and his chest hitched with quiet sobs. And, then there was the bouquet of white roses.

Kenzi and Dyson stood together, he had his arm over her shoulder. Her normally independent attitude sank away into the warmth and pulse of Dyson's animalistic power. Her thoughts weren't wondering very far, staying in the area of Terra, wondering what she was like before the werewolf. And, how long had she lived with those two personas before she broke?

Dyson's thoughts lay in another direction. Two of them, actually. The main line lay with Trick, and what Dyson wanted to do with the Blood King. Poking his other eye out was high on that list; make it so the midget couldn't ruin anybody else's life with bloody ink.

The other lay with Lauren, and her warning. Would the madness appear slowly? Why wasn't he still a werewolf? He didn't feel the creature inside him, like he felt his wolf, and he was almost, almost, certain he'd be able to feel it; probably as keenly as Terra had felt it.

He felt Kenzi move, one hand raising up to her still bandaged forearms and he watched her dig her nails in, up and down. His arm flexed, rolling her into his chest and laying his head on top of hers.

"Too much of that and you'll reopen it," Dyson said.

"Yeah," Kenzi said, she laid her hand on Dyson's chest. "I know, Terra said something like that too. Or it might have been the werewolf in her taunting me. And, they itch. They itch so damn much."

"They're healing," Dyson said. He kissed the top of her head and stepped away. "Come on, we'll go have a celebratory drink at the Dahl, then one in memory of Terra, then one for our new found love. And, when we've done with those drinks, I'll find more reasons to drink."

"Alright," Kenzi said.

They both took on long last look at the pyre. The werewolf was dead. Bo and Hale were avenged, and the victory felt hollow. So much was lost in attaining int. All victories were hollow victories when you thought about the cost.

Dyson shook his head.

The Dahl was quiet, it was almost full, but silence ruled the air. It wasn't the awkward silence that can be generated by two people in certain situations. This silence was charged, there was something in the air tingling like little invisible bells. The werewolf's stench still filled the city, but the core of it was gone. The werewolf was dead, and the Fae knew it.

Kenzi and Dyson met with questioning glances as they walked down the stairs to the recessed floor of the Dahl. There was murmuring as they walked through the crowd. And, rumors had erupted by the time they reached the bar.

The information that Kenzi had been kidnapped from the Ash's compound was top secret information, so, the whole of the Fae community knew it by Tuesday. The werewolf had Kenzi, and now Dyson had Kenzi. There was blood spilt, both on their scents and on their clothes. And, everyone knew… Kenzi killed the werewolf.

Trick smiled as he looked over the bar at Kenzi. It took her a minute to adjust to the eye patch, and the itching. It was killing her.

"Well done," Trick said, his smile wide, grandfatherly. "Well done indeed. The wolf is dead, the city is free…"

"And, we now mourn those who passed," Dyson finished the epithet. His voice was low, and storm clouds were brewing above his eyes. Trick was smiling at him, kept smiling at him, but the darker Dyson's eyes got, the smaller Trick's smile got.

Now there was an awkward silence.

"Here," Kenzi said. She set the letter opener down on the bar, using the sleeve of her borrowed shirt to keep from touching the grip. Too much blood had flowed down that blade, and over onto her hands. "I don't want it anymore."

"A trophy then," Trick said, looking at her and smiling. "We'll put it above the bar."

Dyson and Trick watched one another. Kenzi shook her head.

"It's not a snake."

"I know," Dyson and Trick said in stereo.

Kenzi started to dig at her arms again, and Dyson took his eyes off Trick.

"You need to stop," Dyson said.

"I know," Kenzi said. "It just itches and burns to damn much."

"I've got hydrocortisone cream," Trick said. He walked down to the cash register, where he kept the first aid kit. He pulled a tube out, and came back down.

"Thanks," Kenzi said. She smiled and looked back at Dyson. His face softened some as he looked at her, and he smiled. Life was going to be pretty good from now on—his eyes flicked to Trick—so long as one last situation was taken care of.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Kenzi said. "Why don't you get those drinks ready? Maybe stoplights?"

Dyson nodded and smiled. "Stoplights it is. Go on, hurry won't ya, the party can't start without you."

Kenzi disappeared around the corner.

Dyson's transformed hand wrapped around Trick's. Dyson's face was that of the wolf, and his eyes bored into Trick's. Dyson squeezed.

"Know one thing, Blood King," Dyson spat. "I know everything. You took one life away from me. You made me kill my daughter. And, if you do anymore scribbling with your bloody ink, and screw my life now, I will break every finger, grind those bones to dust, and take out your eye. Fuck with me one more time, Blood King, and you will pay."

Trick looked at Dyson, a mixture of emotions on his face. Fear, a given. Surprise, another given. And, understanding. Trick knew where the information came from. It didn't comfort him, not in the slightest. It made his heart grow cold, and he felt as if another chess piece had fallen in a great galactic game.

"The Angel," Trick said.

The bathroom was dark, not pitch black, but comfortable. She found that odd. Still she went to the sink, and saw a little spot of light. Her eyes went to the little window in the upper right corner of the room. Sunrise.

Kenzi nodded, feeling better.

She set the tube on the sink and pulled the sleeves on the shirt up past her elbows. She looked at the bandages. Really looked at them since they'd been put on, and there was something wrong.

"What the hell?" she said, and held her arm up closer to her eyes. There was something sticking out of the gauze, like that thing on the wing that was tearing it apart. That thing was long and black and skinny as a hair.

A new fear rose in Kenzi's chest. She frantically tore the bandages off. She didn't care if she reopened the wound.

Caution didn't matter, though, not when all the gauze landed on the floor. The wounds weren't there. The long T-shaped cut was gone on both of her arms. The only indication that anything had been there were a few little black hairs.

Kenzi's pulse jumped, a scream began. She sucked in the air for it and it caught in her throat. She looked at the mirror. She looked at the mirror right in time to see a new eyelid slide across her eyes, from the sides.

She found herself, her reflection, looking back out at her with yellowish-gold eyes. Werewolf eyes.

Tears found their way out. They slid down her cheeks. She stood there in the morning light wondering what would happen in the pale moon light.

Kenzi kept looking at her eyes. She looked at her eyes. And, she screamed.

The End


	31. Exposition

Exposition:

The writing of this wonderful little story took the better part of a year believe it or not, and, hand written (as all of my work is), it consumed two 1 subject wide ruled notebooks. One hundred and forty pages, crammed with words and long strings of black ink as I go back and rewrite what I didn't like. I learned a lot.

I learned that it takes longer than two and a half hours to write a fanfiction.

I learned that I can fall in love with the characters in these types of stories. They may not be mine, but I loved them anyway. And, I hated it when Terra died. I had hoped there was some possibility of saving her. But, sadly, the monster telling the story demanded she died for sins she didn't commit herself. And, I really hope I wasn't the only one to cry when she passed from this world.

I also learned that I have a tendency to learn much more about the way the story fits, and what plotlines it needs to contain as I get to the end of the story. This often means the story ends differently than I planned on it ending. The bad guy may die, in other words, but you may love the bad guy before they fall. And, I've noticed if I fight this tendency my work falls flat.

What does that mean for _In the Morning Light_?

Right now I don't know. Yes, I found a number of things about the story that I could expand on. Hell, my head is still full of ideas, ready for them to spill over and onto the page.

What drove Trick to do it?

What sort of connection does Trick have with the Angel?

Is the Ash a more important part of this tale?

Things like that I suppose. (And, I'm going to ask what sort of ideas did you have while reading the story.)

I also really wanted to get to know the character of Terra better. I wanted to really see into her life and see what happened to her. And, that desire surfaced about the time I was writing The Theater. That's when her character really started to develop for me. I don't know.

Then there's Jessa Mae. Like Trick, I really want to know what happened to her. What did Trick do to drive her to such madness? What would motivate her to track down a monster she hardly knew existed, and allowed herself to be mauled by? What sort of poison was she feeding to Terra? And, those questions could go on, for any character in the story.

And, for me, that kind of sucks. Lol. I outline, but I don't design my character's prior to the writing of the first draft. I like to let them develop organically, it's a great deal of fun, and deeply upsetting sometimes (Terra again), but in this medium it's also something of a curse.

What you just finished reading is the first draft of _In the Morning Light_, and if it stays the way I originally meant for it too, this will be the only draft of it. I don't know though. I want to see down those other roads. See what part the Ash and Trick really had to play. I want to watch Jessa Mae as she slides off the deep end, taking her innocent daughter with her. And, I want to know what was up with the missing years.

So, yeah, for me the first draft always drags a bunch of unanswered questions to the table.

I'm thinking I might do another.

And, with the popularity of fanfiction getting published as original fiction (_a la Fifty Shades of Grey _gag), I might just turn the second draft around, and see how it looks when it's a number of my vampires running against a monster more powerful than they've ever seen.

Maybe.

And, I might mention something about that here.

Maybe.

Or you might just have to visit my blog. Or my twitter. Or like my facebook page. You can find the links to all of that on my profile.

As for now, I've got a novel to finish.

Ryan/The Mad Habberdasher

PS: You are also more than welcome at The Black Hole's Teeth, my Star Trek/Star Wars crossover fic :)


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